Abstract
Efficient sexing of the globally vulnerable Saunders’s Gull (Saundersilarus saundersi) is urgently needed in the conservation research and practical management. The universal P2/P8 molecular sexing method has been proved to be invalid for this gull. Here, the improved molecular sexing procedure of Saunders’s Gull is described. The gene sequences of chromo-helicase-DNA binding protein (CHD)-Z and CHD-W were first obtained. Based on conserved regions inside the CHD-Z and CHD-W sequences, a sex-specific primer was designed. PCR products exhibited two bands (about 260 bp derived from CHD-ZW and 150 bp from CHD-W) for female gulls, while males exhibited only the 260 bp band. These findings suggest that the procedure represents a reliable method for sex identification of Saunders’s Gull. The shorter target fragments imply that non-destructive genetic samples might be used with our approach, which will facilitate further researches on the sex of this vulnerable species.
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Acknowledgments
This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41806187), the Foundation of Key Laboratory of Sea-Area Management Technology (201704), and the Doctoral Start-up Foundations of National Marine Environmental Monitoring Center and Liaoning Province (20180540023).
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Lei, W., Liu, C., Shangguan, K. et al. An efficient molecular sexing of the globally vulnerable Saunders’s Gull (Saundersilarus saundersi). Conservation Genet Resour 12, 533–535 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-020-01144-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-020-01144-w