SREL Reprint #3373

Development and characterization of 29 microsatellite markers for Ligumia nasuta (Bivalvia: Unionidae) using an Illumina sequencing approach

Mariah W. Scott1, Jordan R. Hoffman1, Trevor L. Hewitt1, Rochelle R. Beasley2, Stacey L. Lance2,
Kenneth L. Jones3, Todd J. Morris4, and David T. Zanatta1

1Central Michigan University, Institute for Great Lakes Research, Biology Department,
Brooks Hall 217, Mount Pleasant, MI, 48859, USA
2Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, Aiken, SC, 29802, USA
3Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Colorado,
School of Medicine, Aurora, CO, 80045, USA
4Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences,
867 Lakeshore Rd., Burlington ON, L7S 1A1, Canada

Abstract: Ligumia nasuta (Say, 1817; Eastern Pondmussel) is an imperiled freshwater mussel (Unionidae) in eastern North America. Population declines in the Laurentian Great Lakes resulting from the introduction of dreissenid mussels and habitat destruction in the 20th Century have greatly reduced and limited its distribution. To properly inform restoration and management efforts for L. nasuta, fine-scale genetic analyses must be performed on the remnant populations. This study used Illumina paired-end shotgun sequencing to identify potential microsatellite loci for L. nasuta, utilizing two samples to develop the Illumina paired-end shotgun library. Forty-eight primer pairs were tested on the remaining 24 samples. Twenty-nine of the 48 microsatellite primer sets screened were successfully amplified using 24 L. nasuta samples collected from the Great Lakes watershed. The estimated fragment size ranged from 167 to 445 base-pairs (bp) and the number of alleles per locus varied between 5 and 16 (mean = 9.7). Only five of the loci deviated significantly from Hardy–Weinberg expectations after Bonferroni corrections. The development of these new microsatellite loci will greatly facilitate future genetic studies on L. nasuta.

Keywords: Conservation genetics, SSR, Population genetics

SREL Reprint #3373

Scott, M. W., J. R. Hoffman, T. L. Hewitt, R. R. Beasley, S. L. Lance, K. L. Jones, T. J. Morris, and D. T. Zanatta. 2016. Development and characterization of 29 microsatellite markers for Ligumia nasuta (Bivalvia: Unionidae) using an Illumina sequencing approach. Biochemical Systematics and Ecology 66(2016): 239-242.

This information was provided by the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (srel.uga.edu).