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- Title
Dissecting Tropical Plant Diversity with Forest Plots and a Molecular Toolkit.
- Authors
Dick, Christopher W.; Kress, W. John
- Abstract
Tropical rainforests are the most biologically diverse of terrestrial biomes. Despite the ecological importance and economic potential of tropical trees, a large fraction of tropical forest tree species lack scientific names, and hundreds of woody plant species in the most intensively studied forest plots remain unidentified. DNA diagnostic tools, including plastid "DNA barcodes" and multilocus genomic markers, can be applied to tropical forest dynamics plots to facilitate taxonomic discovery. Such genetic surveys, as outlined in this article, require expanded herbarium infrastructure and linkages infield ecology, population genetics, and bioinformatics. The fusion of traditional botany and molecular methods will provide baseline data for understanding both the origin and maintenance of tropical plant diversity.
- Subjects
PLANT diversity; PLANT population genetics; RAIN forests; WOODY plants; PLANT classification; PLANT cells &; tissues; PLASTIDS; BOTANICAL specimens
- Publication
BioScience, 2009, Vol 59, Issue 9, p745
- ISSN
0006-3568
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1525/bio.2009.59.9.6