Nucleotide Chronicles of Troubled Time

Scherbakov Dmitrii and Semovski Sergei

A striking diversity and uniqueness of Lake Baikal fauna is a scientifically established fact. Hence it follows the question on how and when such wide variety of fauna appeared in this relatively closed ecosystem? Revealing the mechanisms is important not only for learning the Baikal history but also for the evolutionary theory in general.

There is one more well-known scientific fact: the existence of numerous “flocks” of closely related species in the lake. But it is extremely difficult to establish their evolutionary relationship on the basis of usual morphological criteria. Fortunately, due to advances in genetics and molecular biology, an unbiased and often unique way to study evolutionary relationships between the organisms was developed. The method suggests comparing the genomes in order to estimate the degree of genetic proximity. To solve the problem, one should begin with a transparent droplet of DNA solution…

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