HAIR SAMPLING AND GENOTYPING FROM HAIR FOLLICLES: A MINIMALLY-INVASIVE ALTERNATIVE FOR GENETICS STUDIES IN SMALL, MOBILE PINNIPEDS AND OTHER MAMMALS

摘要

Capturing wild mammals for biopsies for DNA analyses can be difficult to achieve, time consuming, and highly stressful for the study animal. Many non- and minimally invasive sampling methods have been tested over the past decades to overcome this problem. Noninvasive methods sensu Taberlet et al. (1999) imply the collection of biological samples, such as feces, shed hair, and sloughed skin, without the study animal being aware of the collection (Whitehead et al. 1990, Amos et al. 1992, Clapham et al.1993, Reed et al. 1997). However, noninvasive sampling is prone to systematic genotyping errors due to the small amount of DNA collected, the uncertainty regarding the identity of the individual from which the DNA comes, cross-contamination among individuals, and the degradation of samples exposed for an unknown period of time (e.g., Pemberton et al. 1995, Taberlet et al. 1996, Gagneux et al. 1997, Taberlet et al. 1999, Hoffman and Amos 2005). By their nature, noninvasive methods can also be time-consuming and frustrating if researchers have to wait for a target animal to produce a sample, if indeed a sample can ever be obtained.