Identifying bird remains using ancient DNA barcoding
Abstract
Bird remains that are difficult to identify taxonomically using morphological methods, are common in the palaeontological record. Other types of challenging avian material include artefacts and food items from endangered taxa, as well as remains from aircraft strikes. We here present a DNA-based method that enables taxonomic identification of bird remains, even from material where the DNA is heavily degraded. The method is based on the amplification and sequencing of two short variable parts of the 16S region in the mitochondrial genome. To demonstrate the applicability of this approach, we evaluated the method on a set of Holocene and Late Pleistocene postcranial bird bones from several palaeontological and archaeological sites in Europe with good success.
Citation
Dalén , L , Lagerholm , V K , Nylander , J A A , Barton , N , Bochenski , Z M , Tomek , T , Rudling , D , Ericson , P G P , Irestedt , M & Stewart , J R 2017 , ' Identifying bird remains using ancient DNA barcoding ' , Genes , vol. 8 , no. 6 , 169 . https://doi.org/10.3390/genes8060169
Publication
Genes
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2073-4425Type
Journal article
Description
This project was made possible through a grant (SE-TAF-3037) to J.R.S. from the EU-funded SYNTHESYS project. L.D. also acknowledges support from the Swedish Research Council.Collections
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