Field protocols for the genomic era

For many decades karyotype was the only source of overall genomic information obtained from species of mammal. However, approaches have been developed in recent years to obtain molecular and ultimately genomic information directly from the extracted DNA of an organism. Molecular data have accumulated hugely for mammalian taxa. The growing volume of studies should motivate field researchers to collect suitable samples for molecular analysis from various species across all their ranges. This is the reason why we here include a molecular sampling procedure within a field work protocol, which also includes more traditional (including cytogenetic) techniques. In this way we hope to foster the development of molecular and genomic studies in non-standard wild mammals.