Four really cool things about introns: evolution, phylogenetic signal, species identification, and bio-monitoring

Introns are fascinating components of eukaryotic genomes, although little is known about their functional significance and evolutionary history.  Introns have only recently been exploited for their use in phylogenetics, ecology, and evolution. This paper highlights three non-traditional uses for intronic sequence information, including phylogenetic reconstruction, species identification, and bio-monitoring.  Additionally, patterns in the evolution of introns across four species pairs in three different families will be discussed with a focus on intron conservation and gain and loss over evolutionary time within Holometabolous insects.