Abstract
The Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae) went through a huge population decline in the last century. To address questions on conservation genetics, ecology and evolutionary biology we characterised 120 microsatellite markers (30 Z-linked) in this species using four methods: designing primers from the reference genome of a confamilial species (the zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata, n = 15); Sanger (n = 47) and 454-sequencing (n = 5) of microsatellite-enriched Gouldian finch libraries; and characterisation of cross-species markers (n = 53). We also identified 1992 primer-designable microsatellites for this species.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Jill Lovell and Andy Gillies for Sanger sequencing, Christian Bourne, John Kenny and Xuan Liu for 454 pyrosequencing, and James Brazill-Boast and Sarah R. Pryke for providing samples. Sequencing was performed at the NERC Biomolecular Analysis Facility at the Universities of Edinburgh (Sanger) and Liverpool (454), UK.
Funding
This study was supported by funding from the University of Sheffield for a studentship to K.-W.K., from the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Ministry of Education of China for a UK–China Scholarships for Excellence studentship to H.Z., from the Australian Research Council to S.G. and from the UK Natural Environment Research Council to T.B.
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Samples
Blood sampling of birds was conducted under the approval of the Animal Ethics Committees at the University of New South Wales and Macquarie University, and a permit from the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation.
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Kim, KW., Zhang, H., Horsburgh, G.J. et al. Four-way development of microsatellite markers for the Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae). Conservation Genet Resour 7, 899–907 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-015-0498-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-015-0498-3