DNA Based Techniques for Studying Genetic Diversity

Genetic diversity is a study undertaken to classify an individual or population compared to other individuals or populations. This is a relative measure, as the distance between any pair of entries in the study is greater or lesser depending on all pairwise comparisons that can be made in the study. However, genetic fingerprinting is the unambiguous identification of an individual (based on the presence or absence of alleles at different markers) or a population (based on frequencies of alleles of the markers). This is an absolute measure and does not change depending on other individuals or populations under study. Both Genetic diversity and fingerprinting studies are done using molecular markers.