Genetic diversity and differentiation in reef-building Millepora species, as revealed by cross-species amplification of fifteen novel microsatellite loci.

ABSTRACT: Quantifying the genetic diversity in natural populations is crucial to address ecological and evolutionary questions. Despite recent advances in whole-genome sequencing, microsatellite markers have remained one of the most powerful tools for a myriad of population genetic approaches. Here, we used the 454 sequencing technique to develop microsatellite loci in the fire coral Millepora platyphylla, an important reef-builder of Indo-Pacific reefs. We tested the cross-species amplification of these loci in five other species of the genus Millepora and analysed its success in correlation with the genetic distances between species using mitochondrial 16S sequences. We succeeded in discovering fifteen microsatellite loci in our target species M. platyphylla, among whic

SUBMITTER: Dube CE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5326544 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature