Characterization of nine microsatellite markers and development of multiplex PCRs for the Chinese huge mussel Anodonta (Sinanodonta) woodiana Lea, 1834 (Mollusca, Bivalvia)

Abstract

The freshwater mussel Anodonta (Sinanodonta) woodiana (Lea, 1834) (Chinese Huge Mussel or Swan Mussel) (Bivalvia: Unionidae) is the largest unionid species present in the European fauna. Its native range is in East Asia (South-Eastern Russia to Malaysia), but it has spread rapidly across Europe over the last few decades and the species is invasive also in other parts of the world ( Bogan et al., 2011 and Demayo et al., 2012). Studies of the population genetics of A. woodiana in Europe used slowly evolving markers such as allozymes and mitochondrial COI DNA sequences for the analysis of several isolated populations ( Nagel et al., 1996, Soroka, 2005 and Soroka et al., 2014). However, for the recent and rapid spread of the species across Europe, fast evolving markers, such as DNA microsatellites, are needed to understand important aspects of the population genetics of this invasive species: the route(s) of invasion, the time and number of colonization events, and other details. The first eight microsatellite markers for the species have been described in 2011 (Popa et al., 2011). This number is rather low to infer aspects of the evolutionary history of populations and additional microsatellite loci are needed to increase to power of future genetic studies of this species (Koskinen et al., 2004). In this paper we describe the development of nine new polymorphic microsatellite loci for A. woodiana. We also combined new and previously described loci into three multiplex sets allowing reducing the time and money costs of genotyping, as well as decreasing the risk for samples mishandling.