Molecular taxonomy and phylogeny.

This chapter on nematode taxonomy and phylogeny covers the following: molecular techniques used in molecular taxonomy (protein electrophoresis, polymerase chain reaction or PCR, PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism, multiplex PCR, random amplified polymorphic DNA, amplified fragment length polymorphism, reverse dot blot hybridization, DNA sequencing, DNA bar-coding and real-time PCR), genes used for molecular taxonomy (nuclear ribosomal RNA genes, nuclear protein-coding genes and mitochondrial DNA), microsatellites, methods for inferring phylogenetic trees (minimum evolution method, maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference), phylogenetic tree and tree terminology, reconstruction of historical associations, and examples of molecular phylogenies (position of Nematoda within metazoans, Nematoda phylum, root-knot nematodes of the family Meloidogynidae, cyst nematodes of the subfamily Heteroderidae, stem and gall-forming nematodes of the family Anguinidae, needle nematodes of the family Longidoridae, and pinewood nematode and other Bursaphelenchus species).