Identification of novel microsatellite loci in the sand martin, Riparia riparia, and cross-amplification of loci from other bird species

Abstract

We isolated and characterised six novel microsatellite loci for paternity analysis in the sand martin Riparia riparia, by screening an enriched genomic library. In addition, we tested 16 already published microsatellite markers, five of which were also polymorphic in the sand martin. Only one of these 11 loci exhibited evidence of null alleles, and all were polymorphic (mean Ho = 0.68, range of number of alleles per locus = 4–24), making them suitable for individual heterozygosity quantification and paternity assessment in this species (exclusion probability of 11 unlinked loci = 0.999997).