Portable microsatellite primers for Ficus (Moraceae).

Premise Of The Study: Highly portable microsatellite primers were developed for Ficus to facilitate investigation of genetic structure of complete regional floras using a single set of markers.

Methods And Results: Pyrosequencing of five species of Ficus produced a library of 5723 potential primers. Potential primers found in at least two species and presenting identical annealing temperatures were tested on a set of five additional Ficus species. A set of 20 primer pairs producing well-defined and easily readable peaks was retained and tests showed their potential utility for analyzing population genetic structure of 24 Ficus species from Taiwan. Numbers of alleles per locus ranged from one to six in the least variable species and from one to 17 in the most variable species.

Conclusions: The results indicate that our set of primers can be used to analyze polymorphism and compare levels of polymorphism among Ficus species.