Isolation and characterization of 150 novel microsatellite markers for Zhikong scallop (Chlamys farreri)

We isolated and characterized 150 novel microsatellite markers of Zhikong scallop (Chlamys farreri) from three simple sequence repeat-enriched libraries constructed with (GA)(15) and (CA)(15). The polymorphism was assessed with 48 individuals, and the result showed the number of allele ranged from two to 30, with an average of 8.4 alleles/ locus. The values of observed and expected heterozygosities ranged from 0.0791 to 0.9878 and from 0 to 1.0000, respectively. Sixty-five loci showed significant departure from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, and 14 locus pairs displayed linkage disequilibrium. These markers are therefore potentially useful for conservation studies, population structure assessment, ecological analyses and linkage map construction.