Squeezing water from a stone: high-throughput sequencing from a 145-year old holotype resolves (barely) a cryptic species problem in flying lizards.

ABSTRACT: We used Massively Parallel High-Throughput Sequencing to obtain genetic data from a 145-year old holotype specimen of the flying lizard, Draco cristatellus. Obtaining genetic data from this holotype was necessary to resolve an otherwise intractable taxonomic problem involving the status of this species relative to closely related sympatric Draco species that cannot otherwise be distinguished from one another on the basis of museum specimens. Initial analyses suggested that the DNA present in the holotype sample was so degraded as to be unusable for sequencing. However, we used a specialized extraction procedure developed for highly degraded ancient DNA samples and MiSeq shotgun sequencing to obtain just enough low-coverage mitochondrial DNA (721 base pairs) to conclusively re

SUBMITTER: McGuire JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5865465 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature