Development of 21 Microsatellite Loci and Diversity Analysis of Amur Grayling in Amur River

Amur grayling (Thymallus arcticus grubei Dybowski), a cold freshwater fish, is an economically valuable species that is endemic to Heilongjiang Province, China. In this study, we developed 21 polymorphic microsatellite loci obtained from transcriptome data, and genetically analyzed 66 individuals from three natural riverine populations. The genetic diversity analysis showed that the number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 12 with mean value of 4.7. The expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.0800 to 0.9400 with mean value of 0.4339, while the observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.0960 to 0.8832 with mean value of 0.5243. The polymorphism information content (PIC) varied from 0.8509 to 0.0380, with an average value of 0.52. The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) test showed that most of loci were complied with HWE. The population genetic structure inferred with Bayesian method showed that the three Amur populations was divided into two main groups, and the genetic intervals are mainly positively correlated with geographical intervals. These transcript-derived microsatellite markers and the genetic diversity analysis could be promising for conservation of Amur grayling.