**Acknowledgement**

This study were supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (31000286), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University to J.M.D. and Key Project of Ministry of Education of China (no. 109152).

## **6. References**


Species Distribution Patterns, Species-Area and Species-Temperature Relationships in Eastern Asian Plants 107

Allen, A. P., Gillooly, J. F., Savage, V. M., Brown, J. H. 2006 Kinetic effects of temperature on rates of genetic divergence and speciation. *Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA* 103, 9130–9135.

106 Biodiversity Conservation and Utilization in a Diverse World

differences among taxonomic groups in the future.

*Key Laboratory of Grass and Agriculture Ecosystem,* 

Ministry of Education of China (no. 109152).

*School of Life Science, Lan Zhou University, Lanzhou, China* 

the energetic–equivalence rule. *Science* 297, 1545–1548.

biodiversity at the global scale. *Ecol Lett* 9, 947–954.

energy differences.

**5. Conclusion** 

**Author details** 

**Acknowledgement** 

**6. References** 

Jianming Deng and Qiang Zhang

activation energies rather than an invariant value. Our more recently research showed that validity of the MTB lies on if the area size of the community has no significant effect on species richness (Zhang et al. 2011). Therefore we believe that the slope value for each taxonomic group should be co-influenced by the restriction of distribution range, the area size of sampling community and other abiotic factors, as well as the inherent activation

Our results suggested that the relationship predicted by MTB between the plant richness and temperature can be tested at the larger regional scale (e.g. floristic region) well. However, at the small scale (e.g. nature reserve), the predicted relationships were easily influenced by the many other factors such as area size of community, taxonomic divisions, seed dispersal and so on. Allen *et al*. (2003) claimed that the theory of biodiversity proposed by themselves is not complete and comprehensive. Here we consider that the theory must integrate the fundamental influences of multifactor involving temperature, area size, water, elevation and nutrition on the species richness patterns in small scale regions where the disturbance of environmental factors easily result in change of the species diversity. At the same time, we should also seek the more biological interpretation for the noticeable

This study were supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (31000286), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University to J.M.D. and Key Project of

Algar, A.C., Kerr J.T., Currie, D. J. 2007 A test of metabolic theory as the mechanism underlying broad-scale species-richness gradients. *Global Ecol. Biogeogr* 16, 170–178. Allen, A. P., Brown, J. H., Gillooly, J. F. 2002 Global biodiversity, biochemical kinetics, and

Allen, A. P. & Gillooly, J. F. 2006 Assessing latitudinal gradients in speciation rates and

Allen, A. P., Gillooly, J. F., Brown, J. H. 2003 Response to comment on "Global biodiversity,

biochemical kinetics and the energetic–equivalence rule". *Science* 299, 346c.


Kaspari, M., Ward, P. S., Yuan, M. 2004 Engery gradients and the geographic distribution of local ant diversity. *Oecologia* 140, 407–413.

**Chapter 5** 

© 2012 Ramadan and Baeshen, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2012 Ramadan and Baeshen, licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Biological Identifications Through DNA Barcodes** 

Although much biological research depends upon species diagnoses, taxonomic expertise is collapsing. We are convinced that the sole prospect for a sustainable identification capability lies in the construction of systems that employ DNA sequences as taxon 'barcodes'. It was established previously that the mitochondrial gene cytochrome *c* oxidase I (COI) can serve as the core of a global bio- identification system for animals. A new tools were developed

Species identification is essential in food quality control procedures or for the detection and identification of animal material in food samples. Recent food scares e.g. avian flu and swine flu, malpractices of some food producers and religious reasons have tremendously reinforced public awareness regarding the composition of food products. However, because labels do not provide sufficient guarantee about the true contents of a product, it is necessary to identify and/or authenticate the components of processed food, thus protecting both consumers and producers from illegal substitutions [1]. In addition, trade of

Numerous analytical methods that rely on protein analysis have been developed for species identification, such as electrophoresis techniques [2], immunoassays [3] and liquid chromatography [4]. However, these methods are of limited use in species identification. The progress of molecular biology introduced a new approach, which is based on nucleotide sequence diversities among species in particular regions of DNA [5–7]. The nucleotide regions chosen for species identification were varied by researchers. Within vertebrates, a cytochrome b (cyt b) gene in the mitochondrial DNA has been studied from multiple viewpoints including the nucleotide diversity among species [6] and the availability of nucleotide sequence data for references [5]. Many of the other regions studied are also located in the mtDNA. The coding regions for 12S and 16S ribosomal RNA [8–10], and the noncoding D-loop region [7, 11, 12]

Hassan A. I. Ramadan and Nabih A. Baeshen

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

recently to be complementary markers for (COI) DNA barcoding.

endangered species has contributed to severe depletion of biodiversity.

have shown their potential to be the targets for the species test.

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/49967

**1. Introduction** 

