Isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers for the endangered crab species Sesarmops intermedius

Abstract

Sesarmops intermedius, which is designated as an endangered species in Korea, has been severely threatened by habitat destruction and pollution. From this species, we isolated 9 polymorphic microsatellites, which are independent of each other and represent allele frequencies under the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, except for 1 locus. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 7 to 20. The expected and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.77 to 0.96 and from 0.63 to 0.95, respectively. We also examined cross-species amplification of the 9 developed microsatellite loci in 2 other crabs designated as endangered species in Korea and 6 sesarmid crabs, which live in habitats similar to that of S. intermedius. These markers have the potential to contribute to establishing conservation plans for this endangered crab species.