Tag Archives: conservation

The almighty CRISPR-Cas9 technology: The future of conservation?

In the first post on CRISPR-Cas9, I’ve explained how bacteria and archaea create a “database” of infections and use it as a form of prokaryotic immunization. This time, I’m going to concentrate on how biotechnology turns this natural phenomenon into … Continue reading

Posted in conservation, evolution, methods, theory | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Personal narrative of a journey from zoos to academia

The Molecular Ecologist receives a small commission for purchases made on Bookshop.org via links from this post. Back in February, the South Carolina Aquarium and The Center for Humans and Nature hosted the finale in the Holland Lifelong Learning series of “Why do … Continue reading

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Using R to mine species data

Many of us generate more data than we know what to do with (speaking of which: keep an eye out for the 2016 NGS Field Guide, coming soon!), so it’s easy to forget about the piles of data already at our fingertips. Research potential is … Continue reading

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Lonesome George, no longer?

Galapagos tortoises summon up images of great, lumbering beasts on idyllic islands that planted the seeds of natural selection in the young naturalist, Charles Darwin. In a recent paper, Poulakakis et al. (2015) provide genetic evidence of two lineages of tortoises … Continue reading

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Gorillas (genomes) in the mist

Mountain gorillas are an endangered great ape subspecies that number around 800 individuals, inhabiting mountain ranges in central Africa. They have been the subject of numerous field studies, but few genetic analyses have been carried out. Xue et al. (2015) sequenced … Continue reading

Posted in bioinformatics, conservation, evolution, genomics, natural history, next generation sequencing, primates | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment