With the advent of protein electrophoresis in the early 1960s, the ability to examine
genetic variation in natural or wild populations ushered in a new era in the field of
genetics. For the first time, researchers could test theories, and predictions about both
the levels and sustainability of genetic variation in natural populations. Data result-ing
from these early protein studies have fueled many debates, some of which are still
ongoing today (e.g. the selectionist/neutralist debate). This type of data was an important
first step in our being able to understand the role of genetics in shaping both
populations and species. However, the protein electrophoretic technique, while quite
useful in many instances, does have limitations. Perhaps the most widely cited is that
the technique only detects about one third of the variation present in individuals
(Ramshaw et al., 1979), which is due to both the redundancy of the genetic code and the
resolving power of the technique. Because of these limitations, many researchers
continued searching for methods that surveyed the higher levels of variation contained
at the nucleotide level