Protecting the Gulf’s Marine Ecosystems from Pollution

Abu-Zinada, A. H.; Barth, H. J.; Krupp, F.; Böer, B.; Abdessalaam, Thabit Zahran Al

doi:10.1007/978-3-7643-7947-6

Cited by 25 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 49 publications

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“…The natural ecosystems of the Peninsula, like many other arid regions, are susceptible to habitat fragmentation. The major threats to plant diversity include habitat loss and degradation, overgrazing by livestock, overexploitation, off-road driving, pollution and anthropogenic climate change (Ferguson et al, 1998; Ghazanfar and Fisher, 1998; Abu-Zinada et al, 2008; Al Farhan et al, 2008; Brown et al, 2008; El-Keblawy et al, 2009, 2015; Ghazanfar, 2010; El-Keblawy, 2017, 2018). High mountains harbor a unique and large portion of the Arabian Peninsula’s biodiversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Promise of Molecular and Genomic Techniques for Biodiversity Research and DNA Barcoding of the Arabian Peninsula Flora

et al. 2019

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The Arabian Peninsula is known to have a comprehensive and rich endowment of unique and genetically diverse plant genetic resources. Analysis and conservation of biological diversity is a crucial issue to the whole Arabian Peninsula. The rapid and accurate delimitation and identification of a species is crucial to genetic diversity analysis and the first critical step in the assessment of distribution, population abundance and threats related to a particular target species. During the last two decades, classical strategies of evaluating genetic variability, such as morphology and physiology, have been greatly complemented by phylogenetic, taxonomic, genetic diversity and breeding research molecular studies. At present, initiatives are taking place around the world to generate DNA barcode libraries for vascular plant flora and to make these data available in order to better understand, conserve and utilize biodiversity. The number of herbarium collection-based plant evolutionary genetics and genomics studies being conducted has been increasing worldwide. The herbaria provide a rich resource of already preserved and identified material, and these as well as freshly collected samples from the wild can be used for creating a reference DNA barcode library for the vascular plant flora of a region. This review discusses the main molecular and genomic techniques used in plant identification and biodiversity analysis. Hence, we highlight studies emphasizing various molecular techniques undertaken during the last 10 years to study the plant biodiversity of the Arabian Peninsula. Special emphasis on the role of DNA barcoding as a powerful tool for plant biodiversity analysis is provided, along with the crucial role of herbaria in creating a DNA barcode library.

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