Transcript

MIKE DODD

Species identification can be tricky, especially when these species are very closely related to each other. For example, a couple of species of closely related sage may only be told apart when looking at the flower in great detail and seeing whether it has two or three stamens. This can be seen with a hand lens. If you want to go further and use a microscope, you get a greater magnification. Even going beyond microscopes, you may need to use the chemical composition of the plant and look at its DNA.

So this week, you'll look at species which are very closely related to each other and see how you can use the microscope to distinguish between them. You'll also look at DNA barcoding an automated image analysis.