Journal
MOLECULAR ECOLOGY RESOURCES
Volume 14, Issue 6, Pages 1171-1182Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/1755-0998.12266
Keywords
cross-species microsatellites; individual identification; molecular scatology; noninvasive genetic sampling; Panthera onca; scat detector dogs
Funding
- Panthera
- National Geographic Society/Waitt Grant
- Wildlife Conservation Society/Jaguar Conservation Fund
- Acorn Alcinda Foundation
- Oregon Zoo Conservation Fund
- Woodland Park Zoo/Jaguar Conservation Fund
- Philadelphia Zoo
- Explorers Club/Exploration Fund
- Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech
- Belize Forest Department
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There is a great need to develop efficient, noninvasive genetic sampling methods to study wild populations of multiple, co-occurring, threatened felids. This is especially important for molecular scatology studies occurring in challenging tropical environments where DNA degrades quickly and the quality of faecal samples varies greatly. We optimized 14 polymorphic microsatellite loci for jaguars (Panthera onca), pumas (Puma concolor) and ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) and assessed their utility for cross-species amplification. Additionally, we tested their reliability for species and individual identification using DNA from faeces of wild felids detected by a scat detector dog across Belize in Central America. All microsatellite loci were successfully amplified in the three target species, were polymorphic with average expected heterozygosities of H-E=0.60 +/- 0.18 (SD) for jaguars, H-E=0.65 +/- 0.21 (SD) for pumas and H-E=0.70 +/- 0.13 (SD) for ocelots and had an overall PCR amplification success of 61%. We used this nuclear DNA primer set to successfully identify species and individuals from 49% of 1053 field-collected scat samples. This set of optimized microsatellite multiplexes represents a powerful tool for future efforts to conduct noninvasive studies on multiple, wild Neotropical felids.
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