The published complete mitochondrial genome of Spotted Greenshank (Tringa guttifer) is a chimera with DNA from Red-necked Stint (Calidris ruficollis) (Aves: Charadriiformes)

George Sangster; Jolanda A Luksenburg

doi:10.1080/23802359.2023.2282791

The published complete mitochondrial genome of Spotted Greenshank (Tringa guttifer) is a chimera with DNA from Red-necked Stint (Calidris ruficollis) (Aves: Charadriiformes)

Mitochondrial DNA B Resour. 2023 Nov 30;8(11):1273-1275. doi: 10.1080/23802359.2023.2282791. eCollection 2023.

Authors

George Sangster¹, Jolanda A Luksenburg^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
² Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
³ Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA.

Abstract

A recently published complete mitochondrial genome of Spotted Greenshank (Tringa guttifer) was the first DNA sequence of this species (GenBank accession number MK905885, RefSeq number NC_044665; Liu et al. 2019, The complete mitochondrial genome of the Spotted Greenshank Tringa guttifer (Charadriiforemes [sic]: Charadriidae), Mitochondrial DNA Part B. 4:2353-2354). Here we show that this mitogenome is actually a chimera containing DNA fragments of both a Tringa sandpiper (presumably T. guttifer) and the Red-necked Stint (Calidris ruficollis). This mitogenome has been re-used in at least three phylogenies. The error is documented to avoid the perpetuation of erroneous sequence information in the literature.

Keywords: Chimerism; laboratory errors; mitogenome; sequence artifacts; shorebirds.

Grants and funding

No funding was received for this study.