Environmental DNA from Residual Saliva for Efficient Noninvasive Genetic Monitoring of Brown Bears (Ursus arctos)

Autor: Taal Levi, Jennifer M. Allen, Sophie D. L. Miller, Christopher C. Wilmers, Rachel E. Wheat
Rok vydání: 2016
Předmět:
Male
0106 biological sciences
0301 basic medicine
Saliva
Oncorhynchus
Physiology
Marine and Aquatic Sciences
lcsh:Medicine
Artificial Gene Amplification and Extension
Polymerase Chain Reaction
01 natural sciences
Geographical locations
law.invention
Salmon
law
Medicine and Health Sciences
Environmental DNA
Ursus
lcsh:Science
Polymerase chain reaction
Mammals
Multidisciplinary
Geography
Fishes
Body Fluids
Osteichthyes
Vertebrates
Female
Seasons
Anatomy
Ursidae
Research Article
Freshwater Environments
Genotyping
Genotype
Muscle Tissue
Zoology
Bears
Population biology
Environment
Biology
Research and Analysis Methods
010603 evolutionary biology
Specimen Handling
03 medical and health sciences
Species Specificity
Animals
Molecular Biology Techniques
Molecular Biology
Feces
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
lcsh:R
Organisms
Biology and Life Sciences
Aquatic Environments
DNA
Sequence Analysis
DNA
Bodies of Water
biology.organism_classification
United States
Lakes
Biological Tissue
030104 developmental biology
Predatory Behavior
Amniotes
North America
Earth Sciences
lcsh:Q
People and places
Alaska
Genetic monitoring
Zdroj: PLoS ONE, Vol 11, Iss 11, p e0165259 (2016)
PLoS ONE
ISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0165259
Popis: Noninvasive genetic sampling is an important tool in wildlife ecology and management, typically relying on hair snaring or scat sampling techniques, but hair snaring is labor and cost intensive, and scats yield relatively low quality DNA. New approaches utilizing environmental DNA (eDNA) may provide supplementary, cost-effective tools for noninvasive genetic sampling. We tested whether eDNA from residual saliva on partially-consumed Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) carcasses might yield suitable DNA quality for noninvasive monitoring of brown bears (Ursus arctos). We compared the efficiency of monitoring brown bear populations using both fecal DNA and salivary eDNA collected from partially-consumed salmon carcasses in Southeast Alaska. We swabbed a range of tissue types from 156 partially-consumed salmon carcasses from a midseason run of lakeshore-spawning sockeye (O. nerka) and a late season run of stream-spawning chum (O. keta) salmon in 2014. We also swabbed a total of 272 scats from the same locations. Saliva swabs collected from the braincases of salmon had the best amplification rate, followed by swabs taken from individual bite holes. Saliva collected from salmon carcasses identified unique individuals more quickly and required much less labor to locate than scat samples. Salmon carcass swabbing is a promising method to aid in efficient and affordable monitoring of bear populations, and suggests that the swabbing of food remains or consumed baits from other animals may be an additional cost-effective and valuable tool in the study of the ecology and population biology of many elusive and/or wide-ranging species.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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