Isolation and characterization of 12 novel microsatellite loci in Hume’s Pheasant, Syrmaticus humiae

Abstract

Hume’s Pheasant, Syrmaticus humiae is a rare and endangered species of pheasants. As a result of habitat loss, poaching and human disturbance, its wild populations have decreased dramatically, and it was listed as a globally near-threatened species by BirdLife/IUCN. Here, we describe the first set of twelve polymorphic microsatellite markers isolated from S. humiae genomic libraries using an enrichment protocol which is able to enrich AC and AG motifs. All the loci were screened from a group of 16 individuals sampled from Guangxi province, and each locus showed a relatively high polymorphism (ranged from 4 to 13 alleles). The observed and expected heterozygosity values are ranged from 0.2 to 0.938 and from 0.303 to 0.925, respectively. Four loci showed deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium and no linkage disequilibrium was found between pairs of loci. These informative microsatellite markers will be a useful molecular tool for further studies of the population genetic structure and evolutionary history of S. humiae.