8 Molecular Ecology in a Wider Context Applications of Molecular Ecology By this stage in the book it should be evident that the acquisition and analysis of molecular data over the past two or three decades has provided us with considerable insight into the ecology of wild. | 8 Molecular Ecology in a Wider Context Applications of Molecular Ecology By this stage in the book it should be evident that the acquisition and analysis of molecular data over the past two or three decades has provided us with considerable insight into the ecology of wild populations in virtually every major taxonomic group. Although the greatest accomplishment of molecular ecology has been to broaden the scope of ecological research it has also provided us with a number of applications that have important social and economic consequences and in this short final chapter we will take a look at molecular ecology in a wider context. The practical applications of molecular ecology are widespread and varied. We have discussed some of these in previous chapters one important example being conservation genetics Chapter 6 . We also saw in Chapter 5 how phylogeography can help us to determine the source and possibly the invasion route of introduced species and with this knowledge we may be able to limit the ecological havoc and financial ruin that are caused each year by bioinvasions. Phylogeography and population genetics have also been applied to matters of public health for example researchers have used phylogeography to trace the source of outbreaks of human immunodeficiency virus HIV dengue virus and rabies virus Holmes 2004 and molecular data have been used to infer patterns of dispersal and gene flow in mosquitos and other vectors of diseases such as malaria dengue fever and West Nile disease . Tripet Dolo and Lanzaro 2005 . Most of this chapter will be concerned with the applications of molecular ecology to three areas that we have largely neglected so far law enforcement agriculture and fishing. A number of different methods that are used routinely by molecular ecologists will be the focus of these discussions although note that Molecular Ecology Joanna Freeland 2005 John Wiley Sons Ltd. 288 MOLECULAR ECOLOGY IN A WIDER CONTEXT molecular ecologists have not .
