2016/05/13 by Fernando A. Villanea, Christine Parent, Christine E. Parent +1
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Aquatic Invertebrate Ecology and Behavior #Mollusks and Parasites Studies #Parasite Biology and Host Interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mollus/eyw011
openalex publication_date 2016/05/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Snail shells represent an abundant source of information about the organisms that build them, which is particularly vital and relevant for species that are locally or globally extinct. Access to genetic information from snail shells can be valuable, yet previous protocols for extraction of DNA from empty shells have met with extremely low success rates, particularly from shells weathered from long-term exposure to environmental conditions. Here we present two simple protocols for the extraction and amplification of DNA from empty land snail shells from specimens of Galápagos endemic snails, including presumably extinct species. We processed 35 shells of the genus Naesiotus (Bulimulidae) from the Galápagos islands, some from species that have not been observed alive in the past 50 years. We amplified and sequenced short fragments (≤244 bp) of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 18 specimens. Our results indicate that the implementation of an ancient DNA extraction protocol and careful primer design to target short DNA fragments can result in successful recovery of mtDNA data from such specimens.