Avoiding the "bombs" stuff, as it would make this thread have to move to off topic (I'll just point out that US defense spending has been on the decline for years, so that's not the reason for a lack of funding for plant taxonomy). Regardless, while it's clear that DNA testing may not give a clear answer at the species level, at least the ability to clear up higher level conflicts would be useful. And at the lower levels, even if it was ambiguous where to draw species lines, I would think that there would be lots of data one could get.
* Are two separate "cultivars" that people suspect to actually be one under two different names actually effectively genetically identical?
* Are there certain genes that tend to correspond with certain properties in the fruit?
* Does a certain cultivar with seemingly unique properties actually have some new genetics behind it, or is it just a particular combination of alleles already common in its relatives?
* If we discover that a given set of X genes are responsible for a series of properties we find very important in the fruit, one could make and distribute rapid testing kits for breeding programs, cultivar analysis, etc, rather than having to sequence whole genomes each time?
... and so forth.
yes, it would be really useful for certain plants (organisms), I don't care what spin you put on it...if you had a handheld device that could analyze the genome of a particular organism, and compare it with other genomes, that would be a game changer.
Think too of what it could mean for keeping species diversity up. If someone is in, say, Mali, and runs a test on a lemon tree there, and it comes back, whoa, this lemon tree is really different from all of our other samples labeled as lemon trees in our database... suddenly you have a prime target for A) conservation, B) study (pest resistance, nutrition, soil requirements, etc, to see if these differences translate to useful properties), C) breeding programs, and so forth.
Without such a test, a person would most likely have looked at the tree and thought, "yep, it's a lemon tree", and nothing more.
I could imagine such a scenario where - if they could be made cheap enough - major plant breeders would give out test kits for free to people so long as they use them at least X times a month. Just simply to help build up their database of potential stocks to use in their programs. Or maybe testers could be something users have to buy, but breeders could set "bounties" for certain kinds of plants if the user can identify them and return cuttings or seeds that can be successfully cultivated. For example, a breeder trying to breed a pest-resistant orange might post, "Find a citrus species that has an undiscovered version of any of these 17 genes that usually code for proteins that provide insect resistance: $300 per unique gene discovered". A botanist looking for new species could post something like "Find a plant in X region whose genetic profile is more than Y% different than any other plants in our database: $150 per discovery". Or maybe "We think this plant may have gone extinct. $5000 if you can discover it alive and send us viable propagation material."
Ordinary people could make a career out of traveling around the world hunting out genetic diversity. An impoverished village in the rainforest could sustain itself just by going out and profiling all of the never-before analyzed flora. Etc. And can you imagine what that would mean for a breeder or researcher, to simply have to throw a couple thousand or tens of thousands of dollars on the table, and have people around the world automatically start express mailing you cuttings and seeds of plants with versions of the genes you're interested in that have never before been studied? Or even ones that have previously been discovered but are rare and hard to find / acquire? Likewise, what'd it'd mean for a botanist to be able to be able to launch non-stop exploration campaigns at the cost of the occasional payout rather than continuous overseas expedition costs?
(Again, at this point, we're most likely not talking about a device that does complete sequencing, rather anywhere between several dozen to a couple thousand specific genes shown to commonly vary within particular groupings of plants - something along the lines of an accessory that pairs with a smartphone (or satphone, for really remote areas) and uses it for data transmission and/or processing)
Topic: when will genetic testing finally revolutionize taxonomy? (Read 4450 times)