Abstract
The finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) is one of the smallest cetacean species widely distributed in the shallow coastal waters of the Indo-Pacific Oceans. The population size of the Yangtze subspecies (N. p. asiaeorientalis) has sharply decreased in the last two decades and access to objective data on its population structure and genetic diversity would be of great assistance for their proper management. Here we report on the isolation of nine polymorphic microsatellite using the “Fast Isolation by AFLP of Sequences Containing repeats” (FIASCO) protocol. Polymorphism was assessed using 30 porpoise individuals randomly sampled in the Yangtze River. The number of alleles per locus varies from 2 to 9, with an average value of 5.56, whereas the ranges of observed and expected heterozygosities were 0.300–0.633 (mean 0.496) and 0.473–0.804 (mean 0.659), respectively.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Benson G (1999) Tandem repeats finder: a program to analyze DNA sequences. Nucleic Acid Res 27:573–580
DeSalle R, Amato G (2004) The expansion of conservation genetics. Nat Rev Genet 5:702–712
Gao AL, Zhou KA (1995) Geographical variation of external measurements and three subspecies of Neophocaena phocaenoides in Chinese waters. Acta Theriologica Sinica 15(2):81–92
Hilton-Taylor C (2000) 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN-The World Conservation Union, Gland, Switzerland
Milinkovitch MC, LeDuc RG, Tiedemann R, Dizon AE (2002) Applications of molecular data in cetacean taxonomy and population genetics with special emphasis on defining species boundaries. In: Evans PGH, Raga JA (eds) Marine mammals: biology and conservation. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, pp 325–359
Raymond M, Rousset F (2002) Genepop on the web. http://wbiomed.curtin.edu.au/genepop/
Reeves RR, Wang JY, Leatherwood S (1997) The finless porpoise, Neophocaena phocaenoides (G.Cuvier, 1829): a summary of current knowledge and recommendations for conservation. Asian Mar Biol 14:111–143
Rozen S, Skaletsky HJ (2000) Primer 3 on the WWW for general users and for biologist programmers. In: Krawetz S, Misener S (eds) Bioinformatics methods and protocols: methods in molecular biology. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, USA, pp 365–386
Van Oosterhout C, Hutchinson WF, Wills DPM et al (2004) MICRO-CHECKER: software for identifying and correcting genotyping errors in microsatellite data. Mol Ecol Notes 4:535–538
Wang D, Liu RJ, Zhang XF et al (2000) Population status and conservation of the Yangtze finless porpoise. Occasional Papers of the IUCN/SSC 23:81–85
Wright S (1978) Variability within and among natural populations. vol 4. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Xia JH, Zheng JS, Wang D (2004) Applicability of cetacean microsatellite primers in the Yangtze finless porpoise. Acta Hydrobiologica Sinica 28(6):640–646
Xia JH, Zheng JS, Wang D (2005) Ex situ conservation status of an endangered Yangtze finless porpoise population, as measured from microsatellites and mtDNA diversity. ICES J Mar Sci 62:1711–1716
Xu SB, Tao YF, Yang ZQ, Chu JY (2002) A simple and rapid methods used for silver staining and gel preservation. Hereditas (Beijing) 24(3):335–336
Zane L, Bargelloni L, Patarnello T (2002) Strategies for microsatellite isolation: a review. Mol Ecol 11:1–16
Zhang XF, Liu RJ, Zhao QZ et al (1993) The population of finless porpoise in the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River. Acta Theriologica Sinica 13(4):260–270
Zheng JS (2005) Studies on the genetic variation of the Yangtze finless porpoise and its microsatellite DNA isolation. Dissertation, Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhu B, Liao XL, Shao ZZ, Rosenthal H, Chang JB (2005) Isolation and characterization of microsatellites in Chinese sturgeon, Acipenser sinensis. Mol Ecol Notes 5:888–892
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation (No. 30570252), the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (No. 2004DFB03000), the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2007CB411606), the ‘Communauté Française de Belgique’ (ARC 1164/20022770), the National Fund for Scientific Research Belgium (FNRS, Belgium), and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. We thank members of the Research Group on Conservation Biology of Aquatic Animals, Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, for sample collection.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zheng, J.S., Liao, X.L., Tong, J.G. et al. Development and characterization of polymorphic microsatellite loci in the endangered Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides asiaeorientalis). Conserv Genet 9, 1007–1009 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-007-9435-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-007-9435-7