Development of polymorphic microsatellite loci for Ceratosolen gravelyi (Hymenoptera: Agaonidae), the pollinating wasp of Ficus semicordata (Urticales: Moraceae)

Abstract

The interaction between figs and fig-pollinating wasps constitute one of the most tightly integrated pollination mutualisms. The use of molecular markers, especially microsatellite markers, has improved our understanding of important aspects of this mutualism like sex-ratio evolution, the presence of cryptic pollinator species, and its phylogeographic history. From an enriched (AG)n/(AC)n library, we developed ten polymorphic microsatellite loci for the fig-pollinating wasp Ceratosolen gravelyi, the pollinator of Ficus semicordata. A total of 74 alleles were detected in the population comprising of 41 individuals from three crops in the Xishuangbanna tropical rainforest. A number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 to 10. The observed heterozygosity was 0.537 ± 0.111 and the expected heterozygosity was 0.706 ± 0.112. No linkage disequilibrium was found between any two of the ten microsatellite loci. The newly isolated microsatellite markers will be very useful for wasp parentage analysis and the studying of fig-pollinating wasp sex-ratio mechanism.