Molecular identification of Mazama species (Cervidae: Artiodactyla) from natural history collections.

Aline Meira Bonfim Mantellatto,José Maurício Barbanti Duarte,Susana González

doi:10.1590/1678-4685-gmb-2019-0008

Abstract

Natural history museum collections constitute an invaluable patrimony of biological diversity for analysing the taxa distribution and evolution. However, it is very common to discover taxonomic misidentification in museum collections based on incorrect data. The aim of this research was to identify brocket deer species (Mazama genus) using molecular markers. We collected 199 samples, performed DNA extraction and species identification using a specific mitochondrial marker based on a fragment of cytochrome b (Cytb) for Neotropical deer. We achieved the amplification and sequencing of 77 specimens and verified that 26% of the skulls were wrongly identified. Moreover, in the museum collections 57% of the specimens were only identified as Mazama sp, and we were able to identify them by molecular methods to the species level. Our findings clearly demonstrate the importance of integrating molecular analyses to identify Mazama species, since using only external morphology can result in a high probability of errors. We recommend the selection of non-convergent morphological characters, which together with the use of DNA collected from museum specimens should contribute to more accurate taxonomic identifications.

Highlights

Biological museum collections house millions of specimens worldwide (Wandeler et al, 2007), representing the diversity of plants and animals that exist in the world, and are the main source for consultation and the development of studies involving geographical and temporal distribution of living beings (Wandeler et al, 2007; Goodwin et al, 2015)
Based on specimen grouping in the phylogenetic analysis, we identified three skulls of M. americana, 41 of M. gouazoubira, 12 of M. nana and 21 of M. bororo with high statistical support (Figure 2, Table S1)
Our results show that molecular techniques are useful tools for increasing the reliability of Mazama identification in natural history collections

Summary

Introduction

Biological museum collections house millions of specimens worldwide (Wandeler et al, 2007), representing the diversity of plants and animals that exist in the world, and are the main source for consultation and the development of studies involving geographical and temporal distribution of living beings (Wandeler et al, 2007; Goodwin et al, 2015). The profusion of identification errors associated with the names present in museum classifications give rise to taxonomic problems that affect hypotheses and ideas, and represents a deep practical problem that affects our knowledge about nature (Bortolus, 2008)

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Conclusion