Validation and characterization of thirteen microsatellite markers for queen conch, Lobatus gigas

We report the development and characterization of 13 novel microsatellite loci for the Caribbean queen conch, Lobatus gigas, an ecologically and commercially important marine gastropod. Paired-end sequencing was carried out on genomic DNA from a single queen conch using half a flow cell lane of an Illumina MiSeq. A total of 48 potentially amplifiable loci containing microsatellites were tested on 45 individuals from the Florida Keys and Bahamas. In total, 13 consistently amplifying and polymorphic microsatellite loci were identified. The number of alleles ranged from 4 to 26 and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.340 to 1.00. There was no evidence of scoring error, large allele dropout, or evidence of linkage disequilibrium at any locus. Four loci deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium due to moderate levels of null alleles (null allele frequencies ranged from 0.081 to 0.230). Although null alleles were detected at four microsatellite loci, the high levels of polymorphism and moderate null allele frequencies suggest that these 13 novel microsatellite markers will be useful for researchers carrying out conservation genetic studies of L. gigas.