Vertebrate projects
All fresh material that is brought into the museum will be subsampled for the DNA barcoding of Dutch birds (BCP0043), mammals (BCP0050), fish (BCP0051) and amphibians and reptiles (BCP0052).
Work on the DNA barcoding of birds collected in the Netherlands had already begun on a small scale at the Zoological Museum of Amsterdam (ZMA), allowing analytical protocols to be honed. This project will extend this work, analyzing available tissue material from the ZMA in 2011, and setting the stage for a subsequent effort to gather barcode records from all type material at the NCB (see also the 3D images of type specimen birds). Data will be used for calculating the molecular distances within populations and an accurate threshold of species level, necessary for delimitating cryptic species and hybrids.
Click here for an overview of the collected Dutch species.
Three specimens of the Bearded Reedling, Panurus biarmicus
TBD
TBD
TBD
Birds are regular victims of collisions with air traffic, sometimes with considerable damage to planes. The remains may be difficult to identify, while identifications are important to prevent these “bird strikes”. Requests for identifications of material are sent in to the Expertcentrum, which sends all tissue material that cannot be used for morphological identification to the DNA barcoding facility, usually preserved on Whatmann FTA cards. At this moment, NCB Naturalis has a contract with the Royal Netherlands Air Force. The BOLD ID engine (which includes data generated by project BCP0043) is be used to make identifications from generated DNA sequences.
Friday, December 16, 2011