New primers for molecular sex identification of waders

• Published in: Wader Study
• Main Authors: van der Velde, Marco, Haddrath, Oliver, Verkuil, Yvonne I., Baker, Allan J., Piersma, Theun
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: shorebirds; molecular sexing; Red Knot; primers 2602F & 2669R; CHD gene; Calidris canutus
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11370/ac23267e-4c42-42e3-866a-170ab610fc71; https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/ac23267e-4c42-42e3-866a-170ab610fc71; https://doi.org/10.18194/ws.00069; https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/134418964/New_primers_for_molecular_sex_identification_of_waders.pdf

Determining the sex of individuals through molecular methods is an increasingly important research tool, particularly for studies of sexually monomorphic species. However, currently available primer sets to molecularly sex birds are known to cause difficulties in sexing Red Knots Calidris canutus and several other waders, due to amplification failure of, and polymorphisms on, the CHD-Z gene. To counter these problems, we developed a new primer set, 2602F/2669R, and show that these primers can be used to reliably sex Red Knots and eight other wader species in four genera. We expect these primers to be useful in a wide range of wader and possibly non-wader species.