Isolation and characterization of EST-SSR markers for Astilboides tabularis (Saxifragaceae), endangered species in Korea

Abstract

Genetic assessments of rare and endangered species are among the first steps necessary to establish the proper management of natural populations. Transcriptome-derived single-sequence repeat markers were developed for the Korean endangered species Astilboides tabularis (Saxifragaceae) to assess its genetic diversity. A total of 96 candidate microsatellite loci were isolated based on transcriptome data using Illumina pair end sequencing. Of these, 26 were polymorphic, with one to five alleles per locus in 60 individuals from three populations of A. tabularis. The observed and expected heterozygosity per locus ranged from 0.000 to 0.950 and from 0.000 to 0.741, respectively. These polymorphic transcriptome-derived simple sequence repeat markers would be invaluable for future studies of population genetics and for ecological conservation of the endangered species A. tabularis.

Development of EST-SSR markers for the Korean endemic species <i>Chrysosplenium aureobracteatum</i> (Saxifragaceae)

“…aureobracteatum requires constant monitoring in terms of conservation due to its limited distribution only in northeastern Gyeonggi-do and northwestern Gangwon-do in South Korea. Genetic diversity data of populations is used as a key component for the establishment of conservation plans for rare endemic species (Solórzano et al, 2016;Jung et al, 2018). Although the species is well segregated from taxa closely resembling it in the internal transcribed spacer phylogeny (Kim, 2014), population genetic data would be important for understanding the evolutionary history and for clarifying the taxonomic delimitation of these species.…”