First large-scale quantification study of DNA preservation in insects from natural history collections using genome-wide sequencing

Insect declines are a global issue with significant ecological and economic ramifications. Yet we have a poor understanding of the genomic impact these losses can have. Genome-wide data from historical specimens has the potential to provide baselines of population genetic measures to study population change, with natural history collections representing large repositories of such specimens. However, an initial challenge in conducting historical DNA data analyses, is to understand how molecular preservation varies between specimens. Here, we highlight how Next Generation Sequencing methods developed for studying archaeological samples can be applied to determine DNA preservation from only a single leg taken from entomological museum specimens, some of which are more than a century old. An analysis of genome-wide data from a set of 113 red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) specimens, from five British museum collections, was used to quantify DNA preservation over time. Additionally, to...

昆虫种群衰退是一项兼具重大生态与经济影响的全球性议题。然而，我们对这类种群衰退所引发的基因组层面影响仍知之甚少。历史标本的全基因组数据（genome-wide data）有望为种群遗传指标（population genetic measures）提供基准基线，用于开展种群动态变化研究；而自然历史馆藏（natural history collections）正是这类标本的庞大储备库。然而，开展历史DNA（historical DNA）数据分析的首要挑战，在于厘清不同标本间分子保存状态的差异规律。本研究展示了如何将为考古样本研究开发的下一代测序（Next Generation Sequencing）方法，应用于仅从昆虫学博物馆标本（部分标本拥有百余年历史）单条后足中获取的样本，以评估其DNA保存状况。本研究对来自英国5家博物馆馆藏的113份红尾熊蜂（Bombus lapidarius）标本的全基因组数据进行分析，以此量化不同时间尺度下的DNA保存水平。此外，本研究还将……