Abstract

RODRIGUEZ-CORREA, Hernando; GONZALEZ-RODRIGUEZ, Antonio  and  OYAMA, Ken. Perspectives of Molecular Ecology in a megadiverse country. Rev. Mex. Biodiv. [online]. 2017, vol.88, suppl., pp.3-13. ISSN 2007-8706.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmb.2017.10.002.

A review of studies on Molecular Ecology in Mexico is presented. Between 1990 and 2016, we identified 656 published studies on Molecular Ecology. The best represented subject areas were population genetics (35.3% of the studies) and phylogeography (30.3%), while emergent fields in molecular ecology, such as landscape genomics, DNA-based trophic ecology, and kinship, parentage and behavior were scarcely represented. Most frequently studied systems were animals (58.5%) and plants (32.5%), while other organisms such as fungi, protozoa and bacteria have received much less attention. In general, a considerable development of Molecular Ecology is observable in our country. However, for this tendency to continue it will be necessary to incorporate more extensively technological advances such as next generation sequencing and bioinformatics, as well as to venture into the emergent areas of the discipline.

Keywords : Conservation biology; Phylogeography; Gene flow; Population genetics; Molecular markers; Next generation sequencing; Genomics.