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Future of Avian Genetic Resources Collections: Archives of Evolutionary and Environmental History

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Future of Avian Genetic Resources Collections: Archives of Evolutionary and Environmental History Future of Avian Genetic Resources Collections: Archives of Evolutionary and Environmental History The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Edwards, Scott V., Sharon Birks, Robb T. Brumfield, and Robert Hanner. 2005. Future of avian genetic resources collections: Archives of evolutionary and environmental history. Auk 122(3): 979-984. Published Version http:// dx.doi.org/10.1642/0004-8038(2005)122[0979:FOAGRC]2.0.CO;2 Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:2664296 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA July 2005] Commentary 979 Union and Oklahoma Biological Survey, of birds. In many cases, field and storage prac- Norman, Oklahoma. tices have changed little since their origin in WOOD, D. S., R. L. ZUSI, AND M. A. JENKINSON. 1982. ornithology in the 1970s and 1980s (Johnson World Inventory of Avian Skeletal Specimens, et al. 1984). Because sampling from genetic 1982. American Ornithologists' Union and resources is destructive and nonrenewable Oklahoma Biological Survey, Norman, without further collecting, there are a number of Oklahoma. issues regarding loan policies and reciprocation ZHOU, Z., AND F. ZHANG. 2003. Anatomy of the that are specific to these collections. The fate of primitive bird Sapeornis chaoyangensis from the GRCs is tied, even more intimately than the fate EarlyCretaceousofLiaoning, China. Canadian of voucher collections, to the future of field col- Journal of Earth Sciences 40:731-747. lecting; whereas traditional GRCs consisting of frozen tissues must eventually be renewed by continued fieldwork, current voucher collec- tions will, in principle, remain intact and valu- The Auk 122(3):979-984, 2005 able without any further fieldwork. Particularly © The American Ornithologists' Union, 2005. for small to midsize museums with little inter- Printed in USA. nal funding for the upkeep of GRCs (such as the Burke Museum), it remains a challenge to pro- Future of Avian Genetic Resources vide for the increasing demand on GRCs while Collections: Archives of Evolutionary and at the same time recouping costs for field col- Environmental History. —In the past 30 years, lecting, curation, and storage of tissues. These genetic resources collections (CRCs) have collections and others like them face a unique shifted position within ornithology, from a set of challenges: how to balance the activities novel supplement to traditional voucher col- that build, preserve, and promote use of their lections to a major core source of raw material collections with an eye toward maintaining fueling multiple subdisciplines. The demand optimal use for future researchers. for specimens from GRCs now greatly exceeds Genetic resources collections demand little both the demand for traditional voucher space, but take substantial staff time to organize specimens and, in many cases, the resources and are expensive to maintain. Frozen collec- available to museums to maintain GRCs. The tions need almost constant vigilance even with projection for the next decade is ever-increasing an alarm system installed (Dessauer et al. 1996). use. Here, we present a brief update on modern Because they are newer than traditional col- principles and challenges of collection, storage, lections, they usually represent a small (<35%) organization, use, and dissemination of genetic overall proportion of specimens, but are none- resources and electronic information associated theless heavily used. Loan activity can become with such collections, drawing heavily on the a large investment for the host institution: for experience of building, loaning, and curating example, in 2003 the Burke Museum loaned the GRC of the Burke Museum at the University subsamples of 5% (1,500 tissues) of its collec- of Washington. The Burke Museum was estab- tion to researchers at other institutions, with a lished under the curatorship of Sievert Rohwer substantial outlay in both staff time and sup- in 1986 and is now the second-largest such col- plies. At the Burke, the upward trend in activity lection for birds in the United States, after that has been consistent over the past 10 years and of Louisiana State University. In addition, we shows no sign of diminishing. Because these make a number of recommendations for ensur- loans are to individuals at institutions all over ing the long-term sustainability and value of the world, they indicate a general increase in avian GRCs. demand on tissue collections. Unique challenges for avian genetic resources Field collecting and molecular protocols.—Since collections.—There are now several large their inception, avian GRCs have been used (5,000-60,0000 individual specimens) avian primarily in the arena of systematics, including GRCs in North America, Europe, and Australia, molecular phylogenetics and phylogeography. and many other museums and individuals More recently, common uses have come to have smaller GRCs. These collections typically include conservation genetics and stable-isotope consist of frozen tissues (heart, liver, muscle) analysis, in which chemical signatures derived 980 Commentary [Auk, Vol. 122 from tissues can help determine recent diet or complicated, still represents the gold standard habitat from which tlie tissue was collected for preservation of avian tissues in the field (see Rocque and Winker 2005). In the past 25 (Engstrom et al. 1999). Storage of tissues in lysis years, the uses of avian GRCs have changed buffer (Seutin et al. 1991) has the advantage of dramatically, from protein, DNA hybridization, not requiring deep freezing and is very effective and RFLP (restriction fragment length poly- for isolating high-molecular-weight DNA, but morphism) studies rei:juiring relatively large lysing cells makes isolation of RNA or even of amounts of blood or otlier tissues to polymerase purified mitochondrial DNA a problem. Some chain reaction (PCR) based DNA sequence and protocols and storage buffers offer the ability fragment analyses reijuiring only picogram to preserve RNA for PCR assays (Miller and quantities of DNA (e.g. amplified fragment Lambert 2003). However, even nitrogen storage length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis; Wang will be inadequate for many molecular proto- et al. 2003). Ironically, because of their exquisite cols if the tissues are left at ambient temperature sensitivity even with degraded DNA templates, for hours after the blood sample is obtained or PCR methods have, in our view, contributed to the individual sacrificed. Thus, an appropriate the decline of meticulous field collection and goal for GRCs would be to gather a synoptic col- archiving practices, because the threshold of lection of one or several RNA-quality samples quality for PCR methods is often lower than for per species. other molecular biological approaches. Tissue Genetic resources collections will undoubt- culture methods have the advantage of provid- edly play a large role in "DNA barcoding," an ing an unlimited supply of genomic material initiative whose goal is to genetically character- but are labor-intensive to set up and, to our ize many existing museum voucher specimens knowledge, have not be(;n adopted by ornithol- with a short DNA sequence(s) to facilitate future ogists as they have been by mammalogists (e.g. field identification and species discovery. DNA the Zoological Society ol' San Diego's Center for barcoding is controversial, not only because it Reproduction of Endangered Species [CRES]). is closely linked with the controversial idea We conducted an informal survey of five of that DNA sequences can form the sole basis for the major avian GRCs in the United States to taxonomy (DNA taxonomy), but also because of determine trends in loan activity and research the many well-known theoretical shortcomings use. Our findings suggest that 60-70% of current of short, single-locus molecular characteriza- loans are for phylogenetic studies (i.e. involving tions of biodiversity for purposes of species one or a few exemplars of different species) and assignment (Moritz and Cicero 2004). We sug- that the vast majority of remaining loans are to gest that curators and users of GRCs scrutinize researchers studying pcpulation genetics (i.e. carefully the claims of DNA barcoding and draw many individuals of a single species). Loans a distinction between the theoretical issues sur- for other types of projects (e.g. stable-isotope rounding species designation by DNA and the analysis, studies in basic molecular evolution) potential practical benefits to the additional are currently uncommc'n. Sadly, researchers information provided by DNA sequences. By using techniques such a;3 BAC (bacteria artifi- maintaining a utilitarian view of this contro- cial chromosome) library construction (which versy, genetic resources curators and collections requires very high molecular weight DNA) or stand to leverage substantial resources if DNA microarrays and expressed-sequence-tag (EST) barcoding is conducted on the large scale out- surveys of gene expression (which require intact lined in some schemes (Stoeckle 2003), and few RNA transcripts) cannot make use of most avian would deny that even a single DNA sequence GRCs because the DNA and RNA have not been attached to a voucher can only increase the stored appropriately. With this
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