Publication Abstract

A non-destructive technique for the recovery of DNA from dried fish otoliths for subsequent molecular genetic analysis

W.F. Hutchinson, G.R. Carvalho and S.I. Roger

The advent of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has given access to a wealth of molecular genetic information from archived tissue samples stored in museums and scientific research institutes. Yet, although many of these archives are well documented, samples have rarely been collected as part of a systematic spatial and temporal sampling regime. One of the few such cases includes national marine and freshwater research institutes where extensive sampling of scales and otoliths has been used to monitor the state of exploited fish stocks since the turn of the century, thereby providing a resource for geographic and long-term temporal genetic analyses.

Reference:

W.F. Hutchinson, G.R. Carvalho and S.I. Roger, 1999. A non-destructive technique for the recovery of DNA from dried fish otoliths for subsequent molecular genetic analysis. Journal of Molecular Ecology, 8(5): 891-894