The purpose of this assignment is to Explain how genetics can be used to understand plant diversity, and the techniques and principles of genetic analysis in an evolutionary context.

Discussion:

first explain the genetic results found as a result of the practical work undertaken,

discuss these results in the context of food crop genetic diversity and the potential causes and consequences of different levels of genetic diversity.

- What were the identifications of your four unknown DNA-sequenced Solanum taxa?
How confident are you in determining their ID based on genetic data?

- How does sequence divergence relate within vs. between species? [e.g. % similarity within vs. between]

- Do sequence differences within species (i.e. between different cultivars of the same species) make sense in the light of potential morphological differences of the fruits?

- Explain why your results for the ITS region of rDNA may be different to sequences for other genes or regions of DNA, or indeed the nuclear genome as a whole?

- Why might genetic diversity of some species be rather low? In a broader context, what are the potential implications of such low genetic diversity for crop health?

- In the context of food security, discuss the potential effects of the global homogenisation of food crops (at the level of 3species and cultivars-i.e. intraspecific and interspecific levels).