title: Isolation and characterization of eight microsatellite loci from Galeocerdo cuvier (tiger shark) and cross-amplification in Carcharhinus leucas, Carcharhinus brevipinna, Carcharhinus plumbeus and Sphyrna lewini.
abstract: The tiger shark Galeocerdo cuvier (Carcharhinidae) is a large elasmobranch suspected to have, as other apex predators, a keystone function in marine ecosystems and is currently considered Near Threatened (Red list IUCN). Knowledge on its ecology, which is crucial to design proper conservation and management plans, is very scarce. Here we describe the isolation of eight polymorphic microsatellite loci using 454 GS-FLX Titanium pyrosequencing of enriched DNA libraries. Their characteristics were tested on a population of tiger shark (n = 101) from Reunion Island (South-Western Indian Ocean). All loci were polymorphic with a number of alleles ranging from two to eight. No null alleles were detected and no linkage disequilibrium was detected after Bonferroni correction. Observed and expected heterozygosities ranged from 0.03 to 0.76 and from 0.03 to 0.77, respectively. No locus deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and the global F IS of the population was of 0.04 (NS) . Some of the eight loci developed here successfully cross-amplified in the bull shark Carcharhinus leucas (one locus), the spinner shark Carcharhinus brevipinna (four loci), the sandbar shark Carcharhinus plumbeus (five loci) and the scalloped hammerhead shark Sphyrna lewini (two loci). We also designed primers to amplify and sequence a mitochondrial marker, the control region. We sequenced 862 bp and found a low genetic diversity, with four polymorphic sites, a haplotype diversity of 0.15 and a nucleotide diversity of 2 × 10(-4).
authors.affiliation: UMR ENTROPIE, Université de la Reunion , Saint Denis , La Réunion.
authors.forename: Agathe
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pirog
authors.affiliation: UMR ENTROPIE, Université de la Reunion , Saint Denis , La Réunion.
authors.forename: Sébastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jaquemet
authors.affiliation: UMR ENTROPIE, Université de la Reunion, Saint Denis, La Réunion; UMR MARBEC, IRD Réunion, Saint Denis, La Réunion.
authors.forename: Antonin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Blaison
authors.affiliation: UMR MARBEC, IRD Réunion , Saint Denis , La Réunion.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Soria
authors.affiliation: UMR ENTROPIE, Université de la Reunion, Saint Denis, La Réunion; Laboratory of Excellence CORAIL, France.
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Magalon
keywords: Carcharhiniform; Control region; Microsatellites; Population Genetics