| Summary: | Despite its vast geographic range and important role in coastal ecosystems in the northeast Pacific, the bull kelp, Nereocystis luetkeana, has historically not been as widely studied as its globally distributed sister kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera. To date, there have been no published studies on the population genetic structure of Nereocystis luetkeana. We developed 10 polymorphic microsatellite markers with 454 sequencing and used them to genotype a total of over 2000 samples distributed from over 50 sites from Cambria, CA to Kachemak Bay, AK in an effort to elucidate the biogeographic and evolutionary history of Nereocystis luetkeana populations along the North American coastline. We also tested the classical isolation-by-distance regression model and examined potential bottlenecks, genetic diversity, and allelic richness. The results from this study have given us the information necessary to proceed with selecting samples to be used for population genomic analyses with Double Digest Restriction Associated DNA Sequencing (ddRAD).
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