The study of biodiversity in the era of massive sequencing

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed the advent and rapid development of massive sequencing technology, commonlyknown as Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). This technology allows for rapid, massive and inexpensive sequencingof genome regions or entire genomes, making possible genomic studies of non-model organisms and has seen greatprogress in metagenomic studies. The promise of this information-rich era is to expand the molecular approach ofecological and evolutionary studies towards urgent issues related with conservation and management of biologicaldiversity in the face of global change. Among the current NGS technologies, there are fundamental differences thatimpact DNA sequence accuracy, length and range of applications. Key differences among platforms are the procedurefor library preparation (when needed) and the sequencing process itself (e.g., pyrosequencing, synthesis). In thisreview we describe the technical details of commercially available platforms for massive sequencing.