Blackwell Publishing Ltd PERMANENT GENETIC RESOURCES Isolation of microsatellite loci from the kelp, Saccorhiza

• Main Authors: C. R. Engel, M. -l. Guillemin, A. -m. Jacob, M. Valero, F. Viard
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2007
• Subjects: brown seaweeds; kelp; microsatellites; North Atlantic; population structure; species
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.415.1659; http://www.bio.puc.cl/caseb/pdf/prog7/Engel_at_al_Isolation_MER_2008.pdf

Kelps are ecologically important seaweeds that dominate the subtidal zones of rocky coasts. In Northern Europe, Saccorhiza polyschides is a pioneer species suspected of outcompeting the harvested kelp, Laminaria digitata. To examine how the process of species competition affects species distribution and genetic diversity in coastal environments, we developed 10 polymorphic microsatellite markers for S. polyschides using an enriched library (microsatellites are already available for L. digitata). These loci showed from three to 24 alleles with heterozygosities ranging from 0.36 to 0.92. This polymorphism is high enough for fine-scale population analyses including assignment tests to determine the origin of recruits.