Abstract
Throughout Amazonia, the ant Crematogaster levior is known for its participation in a complex ant-garden mutualism with the ant Camponotus femoratus and several species of epiphytic plants for which it plays an important role in seed viability. We isolated nine polymorphic microsatellite loci for C. levior from a genomic library enriched for di-, tri-, and tetra-nucleotide repeats. Two to 14 alleles were detected per locus, with levels of observed heterozygosity ranging from 0.103 to 0.785.
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Acknowledgments
We thank John Longino for ant identification and Jeniffer Katherine Alvarez Baca for field assistance. We also acknowledge Steve Bogdanowicz and Travis Glenn for their invaluable technical advice. This study was partially supported by a National Science Foundation predoctoral fellowship (EY), a U.S. Department of Education GAANN fellowship (EY), an Amazon Conservation Association graduate research grant (EY), a Sigma Xi Grant in Aid of Research (EY), a North Carolina Entomological Society travel grant (EY), the North Carolina State University Office of International Affairs (CS), grant number 2004-35302-14880 from the National Research Initiative of the USDA Cooperative State Research, and the Blanton J. Whitmire endowment at North Carolina State University. Permission to work and collect in the Los Amigos conservation concession was granted by the Intstituto Nacional de Recursos Naturales (INRENA) of Perú.
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Booth, W., Youngsteadt, E., Schal, C. et al. Polymorphic microsatellite loci for the ant-garden ant, Crematogaster levior (Forel). Conserv Genet 10, 639–641 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-008-9597-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-008-9597-y