title: An Analysis of Factors Affecting Genotyping Success from Museum Specimens Reveals an Increase of Genetic and Morphological Variation during a Historical Range Expansion of a European Spider.
abstract: Natural history collections house an enormous amount of plant and animal specimens, which constitute a promising source for molecular analyses. Storage conditions differ among taxa and can have a dramatic effect on the success of DNA work. Here, we analyze the feasibility of DNA extraction from ethanol preserved spiders (Araneae). We tested genotyping success using several hundred specimens of the wasp spider, Argiope bruennichi, deposited in two large German natural history collections. We tested the influence of different factors on the utility of specimens for genotyping. Our results show that not the specimen's age, but the museum collection is a major predictor of genotyping success. These results indicate that long term storage conditions should be optimized in natural history museums to assure the utility of collections for DNA work. Using historical material, we also traced historical genetic and morphological variation in the course of a poleward range expansion of A. bruennichi by comparing contemporary and historical specimens from a native and an invasive population in Germany. We show that the invasion of A. bruennichi is tightly correlated with an historical increase of genetic and phenotypic variation in the invasive population.
authors: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Department of Evolutionary Genetics, August Thienemann Strasse 2, 24306, Plön, Germany; University of California, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, 130 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, United States of America.
authors: Henrik
authors: H
authors: Krehenwinkel
authors: Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, 611 37, Brno, Czech Republic.
authors: Stano
authors: S
authors: Pekar
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics*; D005838:Genotype; D060005:Genotyping Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D005858:Germany; D009144:Museums; D019021:Natural History; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013112:Spiders / Q000235:genetics*