The golden-striped salamander is a streamside species endemic to the northwestern corner of Iberian Peninsula. In first half twentieth century, an undisclosed number individuals this were reportedly captured in Buçaco, Central Portugal, and deliberately introduced Sintra Mountains, 170 km south its native distribution range. discovery breeding population during 2015 prompted work: we used neutr...

Gonçalves et al. [1] report an examination of the PCR-based species identification test used to detect foxes from faecal material in the ongoing fox eradication programme in Tasmania. The authors rightly point out that poor design in screening methods may lead to false negative or false positive results and they sought to ‘‘better evaluate the specificity of the putatively fox-specific pair of ...

Contemporary studies in forensic entomology exhaustively evaluate gene sequences because these constitute the fastest and most accurate method of species identification. For this purpose single gene segments, cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) in particular, are commonly used. However, the limitation of such sequences in identification, especially of closely related species and populations, dem...

Institutions and agencies which are to enforce veterinary and animal protection and conservation regulations require means enabling identification of species origin of meat, trophies and other biological material. In this study a partial DNA sequence of cytochrome b gene (cytb) was used to identify three different anonymous samples: (1) the hair from the bird’s nest, (2) the blood stain found i...

The genome of the ethanol-producing bacterium Zymomonas mobilis encodes a bd-type terminal oxidase, cytochrome bc1 complex and several c-type cytochromes, yet lacks sequences homologous to any of the known bacterial cytochrome c oxidase genes. Recently, it was suggested that a putative respiratory cytochrome c peroxidase, receiving electrons from the cytochrome bc1 complex via cytochrome c552, ...

A 3.2 kb segment of the maxicircle of Crithidia fasciculata mitochondrial (mt) DNA contains the gene for cytochrome oxidase subunit III (coxIII), the N-terminal portion of the gene for apocytochrome b (cytb) and two partially overlapping Unassigned Reading Frames (C.URF2/1). Transcript analysis of the segment reveals that both the coxIII gene and the C.URF2/1 area are transcribed into a pair of...

Recent studies identified several distinct genetic lineages within the softshell turtle genus Pelodiscus that could represent valid species. Traditionally, Pelodiscus was regarded to comprise only a single species (P. sinensis). These softshell turtles are economically the most important chelonians of the world, with hundreds of millions of specimens traded as food every year. Moreover, Pelodis...

Previous cytochrome B (CytB) mtDNA studies have suggested four species for the opossum genus Philander (four-eyed opossums), three (P. mcilhennyi, P. andersoni and P. opossum) from the Amazon and one (P. frenata) from the Brazilian Atlantic forest. During a faunal survey nine specimens of Philander sp. and four of Didelphis marsupialis were collected in the Mamirauá Sustainable Reserve, Amazona...

In recent years, the number of sequences of diverse species submitted to GenBank has grown explosively and not infrequently the data contain errors. This problem is extensively recognized but not for invalid or incorrectly identified species, sample mixed-up, and contamination. DNA barcoding is a powerful tool for identifying and confirming species and one very important application involves fo...

Mitochondria, acting as the energy metabolism factory, participate in many key biological processes, including the maintenance of sperm viability. Mitochondria-related microRNA (miRNA), encoded by nuclear genome or mitochondrial genome, may play an important regulatory role in the control of mitochondrial function. To investigate the potential role of mitochondria-related miRNAs in asthenozoosp...