Abstract

BONILLA-ROSSO, Germán; SOUZA, Valeria  and  EGUIARTE, Luis E.. Metagenómica, Genómica y Ecología Molecular: La Nueva Ecología en el bicentenario de Darwin. TIP [online]. 2008, vol.11, n.1, pp.41-51. ISSN 1405-888X.

In recent years, we have witnessed an incredible advance in the development of molecular techniques, in particular new DNA sequencing technologies. Genomics and Metagenomics along with Molecular Ecology will revolutionize ecological sciences, giving birth to a New Ecology, with new questions and approaches to those studied by classical ecology. These new methodologies open the possibilities of new approaches to the study of microbial communities, allowing the simultaneous analysis of taxonomical and functional characterization of the community. In this review we discuss some of the advances of this New Ecology, describing its explanatory potential when used along with other disciplines. In general, it allows us to analyze natural microbial communities, including unculturable organisms. In addition, it produces information on the diversity, trophic structure of the community and functioning and nutrient cycling in the ecosystem. This represents a huge leap towards the understanding of organism evolution in its environment, and how this environment shapes evolutive patterns within phylogenetic lineages. Finally, we present our perspectives on the future development of this nascent discipline.

Keywords : DNA; Bacteria; Bioinformatics; Microbial Communities; Cuatrociénegas; Diversity; Bacterial Ecology; Ecosystem Ecology; Phytogeny; Environmental Microbiology.

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