Geography has always been an important component of evolutionary and ecological theory. The advent of sequence typing approaches such as 16S ribotyping, DNA barcoding using the COX1 gene, and multi-locus sequence typing, gives us the opportunity to understand how communities of organisms interact, disperse and evolve. This sequencing revolution is tightly coupled to the development of new algorithms for assessing and comparing populations based on their genes.
Coupled with these developments is the availability of high quality, public domain digital map data. By integrating molecular data with cartography and habitat parameters, we can visualize the geographic and ecological factors that influence community composition and function.
GenGIS is designed to bring these components together into a single software package that satisfies the following criteria: ‘free and open source’, ‘user-friendly interface’ and ‘adaptable and extensible’.
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