Abstract
The parrot family represents one of the bird group with the largest number of endangered species, as a result of habitat destruction and illegal trade. This illicit traffic involves the smuggling of eggs and animals, and the laundering through captive breeding facilities of wild-caught animals. Despite the huge potential of wildlife DNA forensics to determine with conclusive evidence illegal trade, current usage of DNA profiling approaches in parrots has been limited by the lack of suitable molecular markers specifically developed for the focal species and by low cross-species polymorphism. In this study, we isolated DNA microsatellite markers in seven parrot species threatened with extinction (Amazona brasiliensis, A. oratrix, A. pretrei, A. rhodocorytha, Anodorhynchus leari, Ara rubrogenys and Primolius couloni). From an enriched genomic library followed by 454 pyrosequencing, we characterized a total of 106 polymorphic microsatellite markers (mostly tetranucleotides) in the seven species and tested them across an average number of 19 individuals per species. The mean number of alleles per species and across loci varied from 6.4 to 8.3, with the mean observed heterozygosities ranging from 0.65 to 0.84. Identity and parentage exclusion probabilities were highly discriminatory. The high variability displayed by these microsatellite loci demonstrates their potential utility to perform individual genotyping and parentage analyses, in order to develop a DNA testing framework to determine illegal traffic in these threatened species.
Highlights
Poaching, i.e. illegal harvesting, trade, transport, possession and use of wildlife, is among the most serious threats to the persistence of many endangered species, and represents in profits one of the world’s largest illegal trafficking (Haken, 2011; South & Wyatt, 2011)
Despite the potential of wildlife DNA forensics to determine with conclusive evidence illegal trade or harvest from the wild, the implementation of such analyses in parrots has been very limited to date for different reasons
We report the development and characterization of specific, polymorphic microsatellite loci for seven parrot species which are currently involved in local and international illegal traffic for pet supply, all being threatened with extinction
Summary
I.e. illegal harvesting, trade, transport, possession and use of wildlife, is among the most serious threats to the persistence of many endangered species, and represents in profits one of the world’s largest illegal trafficking (Haken, 2011; South & Wyatt, 2011). Wildlife DNA forensics deals with the genetic identification of illegal trade How to cite this article Jan and Fumagalli (2016), Polymorphic DNA microsatellite markers for forensic individual identification and parentage analyses of seven threatened species of parrots (family Psittacidae).
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