Multilocus DNA fingerprinting in the genetic studies of biodiversity

The problem of maintaining biological diversity on the levels of genes, species, communities, and ecosystems is quite topical in connection with the increasing anthropogenic influence on the biosphere. Nowadays it exceeds the limits of purely scientific problems and becomes one of the state-scale tasks concerning the rational use of biological, including genetic, resources. Modern approaches, technologies, and criteria for assessing biodiversity on different levels of biological integration are of special importance. The review considers some problems of the study of biodiversity on the population-genetic level (genetic diversity), in particular, the assessment of intra- and interpopulational genetic variability in outbred, inbred, and parthenogenetic populations by multilocus DNA fingerprinting. The probable causes of genomic instability and the mechanisms of variability of mini- and microsatellites employed in DNA fingerprinting are discussed.