Microsatellites — Evolution and Applications

If you're still one of those biologists who think tandem repeats are something to do with bicycles then this is the book for you! Packed with need-to-know facts, well illustrated and not overburdened by technical jargon, the editors should be congratulated for having had the foresight to assemble 20 chapters, each by active leading experts in their field, which must become a standard reference work. Microsatellites – those short but enormously useful repeated stretches of DNA – are found in most species and exhibit exceptional variability, attributes which make them the marker of choice for everything from investigation of mutational mechanisms, population genetic analyses, fitness consequences of inbreeding, historical reconstruction of human populations, conservation genetics and detection of selective sweeps, as well as having a variety of forensic and medical applications.