First International Conference on Biodiversity and Renewable Natural Resources Preservation, Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco. Copyright 1999 by Marc W. Allard. All Rights Reserved. Introduction To better understand biodiversity, many scientists are collecting information concerning the genetic variation found among organisms. This genetic data often is used to supplement the morphological variation observed among taxa.
Genetic information provides additional characters with which to distinguish taxa.
Sequence data has become a powerful tool for understanding the systematic relationships of taxa and for assisting managers in the protection and conservation of threatened and endangered organisms. While most of the genetic data found in international databases are from laboratory organisms, crop plants, domestic animals and humans, this information is nonetheless extremely valuable for comparative molecular approaches. This contribution is a brief review of the databases that have been used for studies of biodiversity and systematics. Searching Information by subject. Probably one of the simplest methods of searching the world wide web is to choose key words such as molecular biology or biodiversity.