An Integrative Statistical Framework for Assessing and Minimizing Errors in Ancient, Non-invasive and Forensic Genetic Studies

分子技术的进步使研究野生动物种群成为可能，方法是从毛发或粪便等脱落物质和博物馆标本中提取和分析DNA。人们熟悉的DNA指纹鉴定方法可以用在头发或粪便的样本上，在不接触或观察个体的情况下‘捕捉’、计数和追踪个体。不幸的是，这些材料含有少量的DNA，这会给遗传数据带来零星的错误和不准确。当多个人共享相同的DNA指纹时，或者当一束头发实际上包含两个人的头发时，也会发生错误。在这个项目中，将开发一套统计方法来评估给定样本包含每一种不同可能错误的概率。这导致了一种通过将进一步的数据采集集中在最不可靠的样本上来查找和消除错误的有效策略。最后，统计框架将被打包成计算机程序，并通过互联网向所有研究人员提供。关于野生种群的法医、非侵入性和历史遗传信息可以用来解决用非遗传方法不实际或不可能解决的问题。这一研究项目将对获取这类信息作出重大贡献，因为它直接涉及两个至关重要的问题，即准确性和效率。但就像法庭上的法医DNA证据一样，这些信息必须是可靠的，才能使结论准确。因为收集遗传信息也很昂贵，所以它的获取必须是高效的。

Molecular advances have made it possible to study wildlife populations by extracting and analyzing DNA from shed material such as hair or scat and from museum specimens. The familiar forensic practice of DNA fingerprinting can be used on samples of hair or scat to 'capture,' count and track individuals without ever handling or observing them. Unfortunately, these materials contain low quantities of DNA that introduce sporadic errors and inaccuracies into genetic data. Errors also occur when multiple individuals share the same DNA fingerprint or when one clump of hair, in fact, contains hair from two individuals. In this project, a set of statistical methods will be developed to assess the probability that a given sample contains each of the different possible errors. This leads to an efficient strategy for finding and removing errors by focusing further data acquisition on the most unreliable samples. Finally, the statistical framework will be packaged into a computer program and be made available to all researchers via the internet.Forensic, non-invasive and historical genetic information on wild populations can be used to address questions that are impractical or impossible to address by non-genetic methods. This research project will make a major contribution to accessing this type of information because it directly addresses two issues of paramount importance, accuracy and efficiency. But just as with forensic DNA evidence in a court of law, this information must be reliable for the conclusions to be accurate. Because collecting genetic information is also expensive, its acquisition must be efficient.