Abstract
Lionfish (Pterois volitans and Pterois miles) are the first non-native marine reef fish to become established in the Western North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. Next-generation sequencing techniques were employed to identify 18 polymorphic microsatellite loci for P. volitans and P. miles from waters off North Carolina, USA. Allele frequencies for all 18 loci conformed to Hardy–Weinberg expectations after correction for multiple comparisons, the number of alleles ranged from 2 to 20 (mean = 7.1), and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.200 to 0.938 (mean Ho = 0.636). All 18 loci cross-amplified DNAs from representative haplotypes of both P. volitans and P. miles, and the vast majority of alleles were shared. These are the first highly polymorphic nuclear markers described for invasive lionfish and will be useful for characterizing population connectivity and monitoring the progress of the invasion on reef habitats of the Western Atlantic.
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Acknowledgments
CKF was supported in part by the Rachel Carson Scholar Program at the Duke University Marine Laboratory. This work was supported by a North Carolina SeaGrant award to TFS (Grant #2010-1706-09), NSF award DEB-0742437 to DWF, and the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science. The scientific results and conclusions, as well as any views or opinions expressed herein, are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOAA or the Department of Commerce.
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Schultz, T.F., Fitzpatrick, C.K., Wilson Freshwater, D. et al. Characterization of 18 polymorphic microsatellite loci from invasive lionfish (Pterois volitans and P. miles) . Conservation Genet Resour 5, 599–601 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-013-9860-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-013-9860-5