Population genetics examine variation in genes among a group of strains of a particular species. Its major theme is to look at how different environmental factors and selective pressures can affect the distribution of genes and alleles.

Yersinia pestis was employed (Xu, 2010) as an example to illustrate how the techniques are used for population genetic studies and how the achievements of these kinds of studies can be used for rapid identification and tracing the origin of pathogenic bacteria.

New emerging techniques, including high throughput sequencing technologies, will give us unprecedented opportunities to understand microevolution and pathogenesis of bacterial pathogens (Xu, 2010).

References:
Xu, J. (2010) Microbial Population Genetics. Caister Academic Press, Norfolk, UK.

Labels: Microbial Population Genetics, population genetics