Projects - Deer Genetics and Population Health
- Kinship analysis and Chronic Wasting Disease association of white-tailed deer. Holly Ernest
- Species discrimination of Mule Deer and White-Tailed Deer by Microsatellite Markers (for use in Forensic Casework). Megan Cauder and the Forensic Unit of the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory
Analysis of deer DNA poses a challenge to forensic casework since many species are closely-related. Because of this genetic similarity, Megan Caulder is researching a way that DNA analysts could easily distinguish two closely-related deer species from one another by means of a micro satellite/Short Tandem Repeat (STR) panel. She is focusing her research on discriminating white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) from mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), two species that are genetically similar and overlap in distribution in western North America. One objective of forensic science involves the ability to link the suspect of a crime with the scene of a crime. This research aims to aid the wildlife forensic community by providing a method of determining whether the species of deer remains at a scene is the same species as those remains associated with the suspect.
