Mitochondrial DNA Sequencing
A short fragment of mitochondrial cytochrome b was amplified for
all individuals in order to provide a maternal signature of inheritance,
as is common practice in population genetic studies. Cytochrome bwas selected as it is informative and widely used in mammalian
population and phylogenetics. Due to the degraded nature of museum
specimens only the first ~300 bp of the cytochromeb gene were selected for amplification in this study.
Mitochondrial DNA is present in hundreds to thousands of copies per
cell, and historically the recovery of mtDNA has been routinely
published in ancient DNA, with nuclear DNA (only one copy per cell)
being more difficult to recover. As such, mtDNA sequences serve as a
maternal signal as well as a control to ensure endogenous DNA was
present in the tested samples.