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- Title
Opportunities and challenges for high‐quality biodiversity tissue archives in the age of long‐read sequencing.
- Abstract
The technological ability to characterize genetic variation at a genome‐wide scale provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the genetic underpinnings and evolutionary mechanisms that promote and sustain biodiversity. The transition from short‐ to long‐read sequencing is particularly promising and allows a more holistic view on any changes in genetic diversity across time and space. Long‐read sequencing has tremendous potential but sequencing success strongly depends on the long‐range integrity of DNA molecules and therefore on the availability of high‐quality tissue samples. With the scope of genomic experiments expanding and wild populations simultaneously disappearing at an unprecedented rate, access to high‐quality samples may soon be a major concern for many projects. The need for high‐quality biodiversity tissue archives is therefore urgent but sampling and preserving high‐quality samples is not a trivial exercise. In this review, I will briefly outline how long‐read sequencing can benefit the study of molecular ecology, how this will substantially increase the demand for high‐quality tissues and why it is challenging to preserve DNA integrity. I will then provide an overview of preservation approaches and end with a call for support to acknowledge the efforts needed to assemble high‐quality tissue archives. In doing so, I hope to simultaneously motivate field biologists to expand sampling practices and molecular biologists to develop (cost) efficient guidelines for the sampling and long‐term storage of tissues. A concerted, interdisciplinary, effort is needed to catalogue the genetic variation underlying contemporary biodiversity and will eventually provide a critical resource for future studies.
- Subjects
GENETIC variation; MOLECULAR biologists; BIODIVERSITY; NUCLEOTIDE sequencing; TISSUES
- Publication
Molecular Ecology, 2021, Vol 30, Issue 23, p5935
- ISSN
0962-1083
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/mec.15909