Development of eight polymorphic microsatellites for an Australasian rainforest tree species Cryptocarya mackinnoniana (Lauraceae)

Abstract

We developed eight microsatellite markers for Cryptocarya mackinnoniana to study the spatial genetic structure and ecological correlates of parentage in secondary rainforests in Australia's Wet Tropics. The microsatellite loci were screened in 99 trees, and 623 seedlings < 0.24 m tall, at a site extending from primary rainforest into adjacent 50-year-old secondary rainforest. The eight loci were polymorphic, exhibiting between three and 11 alleles, and gene diversity (HE) from 0.25 to 0.84. For the trees, no departures from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium were detected, except at locus Cm03, which had an estimated null allele frequency of 0.0903. No locus combinations exhibited linkage disequilibrium.