Saturday, February 25, 2012

Can one use morphology and DNA sequences to identify a specie?

What else can one use to identify a specie? Fossil records? Is DNA sequences the best way to identify a specie?Can one use morphology and DNA sequences to identify a specie?
Using molecular homology (such as comparing DNA sequences) is a more effective way of identifying a species as distinct. Using morphological homologies can pose a problem, because two different species can be so morphologically similar that they may appear to be the same species. By comparing nucleotide sequences, one can obtain more accurate results, because such a mechanism makes it easier to distinguish one species from another. When evaluating molecular homologies, species who are very distantly related are likely to differ in nitrogenous bases at many sites. Distantly related species may also differ with respect to the length of their nucleic acids.

No comments:

Post a Comment