New primers for molecular sex identification of waders

Determining the sex of individuals through molecular methods is an increasingly
important research tool, particularly for studies of sexually monomorphic species.
However, currently available primer sets to molecularly sex birds are known to
cause difficulties in sexing Red Knots Calidris canutus and several other waders,
due to amplification failure of, and polymorphisms on, the CHD-Z gene. To
counter these problems, we developed a new primer set, 2602F/2669R, and
show that these primers can be used to reliably sex Red Knots and eight other
wader species in four genera. We expect these primers to be useful in a wide
range of wader and possibly non-wader species.