Molecular studies of genetic variation in Black-footed Albatrosses have come to varied conclusions regarding levels of genetic variation, levels of gene flow and the direction of gene flow, depending on the markers used and sampling scheme.
We performed a partial least squares (PLS) analysis on the data, where blood, menstrual blood, saliva and semen markers and samples clustered well.
This dovetailing of wildlife forensics with natural resource management and research existed informally for 10 years, since the beginning of my research career at McMaster University, where the same DNA markers and samples would benefit both conservation officers and research biologists.
Returning to the question that conservation officers might have about identifying the geographic origin of a specific animal as an example, this application requires a significant number of DNA markers and samples from different localities within the database to ensure a confident assignment of an unknown sample to a particular geography.
In addition, targeted highly multiplex amplification methods, such as molecular inversion probes [4], [5], GoldenGate [6] and trinucleotide threading [7], combined with massive sequencing is a powerful way of genotyping large sets of markers and samples at the same time [8].
Unfortunately we were unable to include samples from South American Gymnopaxillus species, so our results call for further analyses including more markers and samples from this group.
Our power to detect multiple paternity (two or more fathers) was very high given the markers and sample sizes available in this study.
An overview of the markers and samples previously analysed is given below as well as in the supplemental materials (Additional file 1).
Further studies with a higher number of markers and samples from the distribution area of bilberry are needed to identify the key biodiversity areas of the species.
With reasonable numbers of markers and samples, once a population is small (N ∼ 100), genetic diversity loss should be readily identifiable before severe erosion occurs.
