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The use of DNA barcodes in food web construction-terrestrial and aquatic ecologists unite!
- Source :
- Genome. 59(9)
- Publication Year :
- 2016
-
Abstract
- By depicting who eats whom, food webs offer descriptions of how groupings in nature (typically species or populations) are linked to each other. For asking questions on how food webs are built and work, we need descriptions of food webs at different levels of resolution. DNA techniques provide opportunities for highly resolved webs. In this paper, we offer an exposé of how DNA-based techniques, and DNA barcodes in particular, have recently been used to construct food web structure in both terrestrial and aquatic systems. We highlight how such techniques can be applied to simultaneously improve the taxonomic resolution of the nodes of the web (i.e., the species), and the links between them (i.e., who eats whom). We end by proposing how DNA barcodes and DNA information may allow new approaches to the construction of larger interaction webs, and overcome some hurdles to achieving adequate sample size. Most importantly, we propose that the joint adoption and development of these techniques may serve to unite approaches to food web studies in aquatic and terrestrial systems—revealing the extent to which food webs in these environments are structured similarly to or differently from each other, and how they are linked by dispersal.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
0301 basic medicine
Food Chain
Ecology
Ecology (disciplines)
General Medicine
Biodiversity
Genomics
Biology
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Food web
Ecological network
03 medical and health sciences
030104 developmental biology
Dna barcodes
Genetics
Species identification
Animals
DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic
Humans
Molecular Biology
Ecosystem
Biotechnology
Isotope analysis
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14803321
- Volume :
- 59
- Issue :
- 9
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Genome
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....3c184c4f4a2d9add511a730e6d8c9c30