Noninvasive alternatives for DNA collection from threatened rodents

Green, Michelle L.; Ting, Tih-Fen; Manjerovic, Mary Beth; Mateus-Pinilla, Nohra; Novakofski, Jan

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/118056 Copy

Description

Title

Noninvasive alternatives for DNA collection from threatened rodents

Author(s)

• Green, Michelle L.
• Ting, Tih-Fen
• Manjerovic, Mary Beth
• Mateus-Pinilla, Nohra
• Novakofski, Jan

Issue Date

2013-05-02

Keyword(s)

• Noninvasive
• Hair
• Fecal
• Rodent
• Threatened

Abstract

Many rodent species are currently under conser- vation threat. However, population monitoring and status assessment are extremely challeng- ing because of small body size, low abundance and elusive behavior of rodents. Furthermore, invasive methods of capture and tissue collec- tion commonly used to address such studies can induce an unacceptable amount of stress to sensitive species. As a result, noninvasive tech- niques have become more widely used, but rela- tively few studies have applied noninvasive te- chniques to rodents. Here we present two nonin- vasive alternatives for the collection of DNA from Franklin’s ground squirrels (Poliocitellus franklinii). We compared the quantity, purity and degradation of DNA extracted from plucked hair and fecal pellets to tail snip tissues. We reco- vered more DNA from tail snips than either plucked hair or fecal pellets. Both hair and fecal pellets recovered DNA with purity ratios similar to tail snips. As expected, DNA recovered from fecal pellets exhibited a high degree of degrada- tion compared to hair and tail tissues. Careful planning of field and laboratory protocols is therefore necessary to compensate for challen- ges associated with noninvasive tissue types. While there is no tissue that can universally be applied to all research projects, both hair and feces are viable alternatives to traditional inva- sive procedures and can be applied to threa- tened and endangered rodent species.

Type of Resource

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