@article{71942fbc42c34ae5adbb69b8be0ac94b,
title = "Genomics Reveals the Origins of Historical Specimens",
abstract = "Centuries of zoological studies have amassed billions of specimens in collections worldwide. Genomics of these specimens promises to reinvigorate biodiversity research. However, because DNA degrades with age in historical specimens, it is a challenge to obtain genomic data for them and analyze degraded genomes. We developed experimental and computational protocols to overcome these challenges and applied our methods to resolve a series of long-standing controversies involving a group of butterflies. We deduced the geographical origins of several historical specimens of uncertain provenance that are at the heart of these debates. Here, genomics tackles one of the greatest problems in zoology: countless old specimens that serve as irreplaceable embodiments of species concepts cannot be confidently assigned to extant species or population due to the lack of diagnostic morphological features and clear documentation of the collection locality. The ability to determine where they were collected will resolve many on-going disputes. More broadly, we show the utility of applying genomics to historical museum specimens to delineate the boundaries of species and populations, and to hypothesize about genotypic determinants of phenotypic traits.",
keywords = "ancient DNA, biodiversity, geolocation, museomics, taxonomy",
author = "Qian Cong and Jinhui Shen and Jing Zhang and Wenlin Li and Kinch, {Lisa N.} and Calhoun, {John V.} and Warren, {Andrew D.} and Grishin, {Nick V.}",
note = "Funding Information: We are indebted to Naomi Pierce, Philip Perkins, and Rachel Hawkins (Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA) for the loan of historically significant Hesperia specimens for DNA analysis that made this work possible. We are grateful to David Grimaldi and Courtney Richenbacher (American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY), Jonathan Pelham (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Seattle, WA), John Rawlins (Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA), Paul Opler and Boris Kondratieff (Colorado State University Collection, Fort Collins, CO), Weiping Xie (Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Los Angeles, CA), Rodolphe Rougerie (Mus{\'e}um National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France), Edward Riley, Karen Wright, and John Oswald (Texas A & M University, College Station, TX), and Robert Robbins, John Burns, and Brian Harris (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC) for granting access to the collections under their care and for stimulating discussions; Ernst Brockmann, Steve Kohler, and Mark Walker for sampling and providing photos of specimens in their collections; Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (Natural Resources Program Director David H. Riskind) for the permit number 08-02Rev that made research based on material collected in Texas State Parks possible. The study has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (GM127390) and the Welch Foundation I-1505 to N.V.G. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 The Author(s).",
year = "2021",
month = may,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1093/molbev/msab013",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "38",
pages = "2166--2176",
journal = "Molecular Biology and Evolution",
issn = "0737-4038",
publisher = "Oxford University Press",
number = "5",
}