Taxonomy is fundamental to understanding the variety of life forms, and exciting expansions in molecular biology are re- volutionising the obtained data. This volume reviews the ma- jor molecular biological techniques that are applied in ta- xonomy. The chapters are arranged in three main sections:1) Overviews of important topics in molecular taxonomy; 2) Case studies of the successful application of molecular methods to taxonomic and evolutionary questions; 3) Protocols for a range of generally applicable methods. The described techni- ques include DNA-DNA hybridization, DNA fingerprinting, RFLP analysis, and PCR sequencing.