Paper short abstract:

Linnean taxonomy is over 260 years old scientific tradition. Type specimens link species names to biological species. In the genomics era, old type specimens often lack critical genetic information. Modern sequencing protocols bring type specimens available for genetic study as demonstrated here.

Paper long abstract:

The tradition of Linnean taxonomy is over 260 years old. Each species is provided with the so-called type specimen that is of high importance, because it provides as a link between the Linnaean binomen (species name) and the biological species unit. For example, when a species is split into two species, the type specimens determines which one of the two retains the given name and which one should be named as a new species. Presently, genetic information is of critical value in taxonomic work and species descriptions. However, tens of thousands of old type specimens lack DNA sequence information. This information is not easy to recover as DNA degrades over time. The so-called museomics approaches provide efficient ways to recover DNA sequence information from historical samples. In our research, we have tested old pinned museum samples, including type specimens, for museomics based DNA sequencing with good results. Old historical samples are easily contaminated with surrounding DNA, but under controlled experiments we could demonstrate that in most cases the recovered sequences truly originate from the historical sample. Analyses of historical specimens can be carried out in a non-destructive manner.