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Isolation and characterization of microsatellite loci from the endangered Mediterranean sponge Spongia agaricina (Demospongiae: Dictyoceratida)

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Abstract

The abundance of the bath sponge Spongia agaricina has decreased drastically in recent years and it is now considered an endangered species under Annex 3 of Bern and Barcelona conventions. We describe eight microsatellite markers and present data on their allelic variation and utility as high resolution genetic markers. We analyzed 36 individuals from two populations and found that the number of alleles per locus ranged between 1 and 7. Observed heterozygosity ranged from 0 to 0.72. We found deviations from Hardy–Weinberg expectations for some loci. We exclusively detected null alleles for those loci that deviated from Hardy–Weinberg expectations. Also, distributions of allele frequencies differed significantly between the two populations, making them suitable for population genetic analyses.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Isabel Calderón, Marc Rius, Xavier Turon, Enrique Macpherson and people from Serra’s laboratory at the University of Barcelona for technical support and comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Research funded by grants from the Agencia Nationale de la Recherche (ECIMAR), Spanish Ministry of Environment (119/2003), Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (CMT2007-66635) and the BIOCAPITAL project (MRTN-CT-2004-512301) of the European Union

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Ecology, Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Blanes (CEAB, CSIC), Acceso Cala St. Francesc 14, 17300, Blanes, Girona, Spain

    Charlotte Noyer, Gemma Agell & Mikel A. Becerro

  2. Departament de Genètica, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 645, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Marta Pascual

Authors
  1. Charlotte Noyer
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  2. Gemma Agell
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  3. Marta Pascual
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  4. Mikel A. Becerro
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Correspondence to Gemma Agell.

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Noyer, C., Agell, G., Pascual, M. et al. Isolation and characterization of microsatellite loci from the endangered Mediterranean sponge Spongia agaricina (Demospongiae: Dictyoceratida). Conserv Genet 10, 1895–1898 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-009-9848-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-009-9848-6

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