Kricket’s Kritters was contacted by Shane Campbell-Staton, a student at the University of New York at Rochester, who is looking for Bearded Dragon owners to participate in his research project.

Want to Participate?  All you have to do is collect some shed skin and send in the sample.  He’ll even provide the specimen sample container to mail the skin to him. 

NOTE:  The caveat is that you must know where your dragon came from; meaning what breeder bred your dragon, and to be able to provide it’s blood line (morph) information, for example:  Leucistic, snow, blood, german giant, sandfire, red, hypomelanistic snow, or whatever your bloodline (morph) cross is to the best of your ability. 

Guessing is not ideal, unknown bloodlines are not wanted at this time in the project!

NOTE:  You should be able to contact the breeder that you got your dragon from to obtain the required information.  Reliable breeders should have all of your dragon’s genetic information available.

If you purchased your dragon from Kricket's Kritters, I sent out bloodline/genetic information to all of our Bearded Dragon customers in October, if you need it again, please feel free to ask.

Molecular Analysis of Bottleneck Event and Geographic Origin of Captive U.S. Pogona Vitticeps Population

Dr. Richard Glor

Shane Campbell-Staton

CLICK HERE to Download a Copy of the project information including the Submission Instructions for your Specimen Sample.

Introduction:

Over the past decade the Australian bearded dragon (Pogona vitticeps) has become one of the most popular exotic pets in the world. Today, the captive population includes a variety of color and pattern morphs whose phenotypic diversity appears to exceed that observed across this species’ native range. This result is surprising because that captive population of P. vitticeps was likely started with only a limited number of animals smuggled out of Australia (export of wild-caught animals was illegal at the time animals started appearing in captivity). We are interested in testing this hypothesized bottleneck through molecular genetic analyses of P. vitticeps. The bottleneck hypothesis makes two key predictions. First, it predicts that captive populations are the result of subsampling the native distribution of P. vitticeps. Second, it predicts that the amount of genetic variation observed in the captive populations will be lower than that observed across the native range.

Methods:

We propose to test these predictions by obtaining molecular genetic data from captive populations of P. vitticeps and analyzing this data in association with comparable data from across this species’ native range. Samples from the native range were obtained during the course of more than ten weeks of field work and subsequent sequencing efforts at the Melbourne Museum. We now hope to obtain a sample from the captive population that encompasses as much of its genetic diversity as possible.

If the captive population results from subsampling the native distribution, we expect to obtain DNA sequence data from captive individuals that can be traced to some, but not all of the native range populations. Previous phylogeographic studies of mitochondrial DNA from the native range demonstrate considerable population structure, suggesting that it will be possible to assign individuals from the captive populations to specific areas within the native range. We will test our second prediction – that genetic variation is reduced in the captive population relative to the native range population – by quantifying genetic diversity and variance in these two samples using standard metrics.

The following steps need to be taken to accomplish these goals for the project. It must first be proven that DNA can be successfully extracted using shed skin samples. Samples of the captive population must be acquired. DNA must be extracted from all samples, giving a reasonable representation of both captive and wild populations. DNA sequencing must be performed from the extracted DNA. A phylogeny must be compiled from the sequenced DNA then analyzed. Finally, the results and analysis must be compiled into a written presentation of our results.

Further Application:

Additionally this study may provide valuable information to those involved in the captive breeding of P. vitticeps. Our genetic analysis will offer comparisons of relatedness between individuals of particular morphology, lineage, and within collections. The analysis of genetic variance within the captive population will reveal any low genetic variation and provides possibilities for the development and implementation of breeding strategies whose aim are to avoiding inbreeding depression as well as maintain lineages from certain geographic origins, “pure lineages”.

What we're doing:

Our main goal is to investigate the origin(s) and genetic diversity of captive P. vitticeps using molecular genetic methods.  Our results may ultimately provide information about which regions of the native range are represented in the captive population and the degree to which inbreeding exists in captive animals.  If you're interested in further details about our project, please see the attached project proposal.

What we're looking for:

Although our goal is to obtain a large sample of tissues, we'd like to begin by focusing on individuals representing as many distinct varieties (e.g., blood red, leucistics, etc.) and family lines as possible.  Thus, we would like to avoid sampling individuals that are known to be closely related.  For each sample you send, we request that you fill out the attached information card and include it with the sample (as detailed below).

This is a “copy” of the email Kricket’s Kritters received from Shane describing the research project:

I am an undergraduate student at the University of Rochester with an interest in herpetology. Next semester I will be undertaking a project involving the bearded dragon (Pagona vitticeps) in the laboratory of Prof. Richard Glor. The goal of this project is to examine the genetic diversity and geographical origin if the captive population of P. vitticeps in the United States.

In order to make the project a success I require DNA samples from a large number of potentially unrelated individuals as well as individuals representing the various domestic morphs (e.g. pastels, starfires, snows, leucistics, etc.) This is where I require your help. Fortunately, the samples I require can be obtained without any harm to the animal and minimal effort on your part: all that is needed is a dried sample of shed skin.

Please let them know that I can provide a self-addressed envelope and individual tubes for each sample. Although I can't provide any financial incentives for your assistance, I can assure you that you will be acknowledged in any publications that result from this work. If all goes well, I will also be able to provide you with some interesting and potentially useful information about the genetics of the animals in your collection.

Your help with this project will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Shane Campbell-Staton

University of Rochester

Rochester, NY

14627

NOTE:  Shane's email address is only available in the download for security reasons.

Sample Information

Breeder Name:

Date of Sample Taken:

Age:

Sex:

Morph:

Size:

How to get it to us:

To ensure the integrity of the skin samples we ask that you follow the protocol below.

1. Shed skin should be taken from the animal as soon as possible and allowed to dry away from sunlight (UV damages DNA).
2. Once dry, the skin should be placed in the tubes that we will send you. If the shed is obtained before you receive the tubes, a ziplock bag will suffice until the tubes arrive.
3. The sample information card should be filled out to the best of your ability and placed in the tube with the correct sample.
4. The sample tubes should be placed in the premarked package and mailed back to our lab

NOTE: We recognize that shed skin samples are the easiest tissues to obtain and intend to rely heavily on them for this study.  Because shed skins don't contain much DNA, however, we'd be delighted to receive any other types of tissues samples you might have available (e.g., toe or tail clippings, blood samples, or frozen carcasses).  Please let us know if you have such samples available so we can make special shipping arrangements.

 CLICK HERE to Download a Copy of this information including the Specimen Sample Information Page.

Shane Campbell-Staton
Glor Lab
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 

14627

NOTE:  Shane's email address is only available in the download for security reasons.