Characterization of novel microsatellite markers in the Antarctic silverfish Pleuragramma antarcticum and cross species amplification in other Notothenioidei

We characterized nine polymorphic microsatellites by an enriched library from the Antarctic silverfish Pleuragramma antarcticum, a key species in the high Antarctic zone of the Southern Ocean. The number of alleles scored ranged from 7 to 39, whereas the observed and expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.4000 to 0.9750 and from 0.3943 to 0.9782, respectively. Cross-amplification was tested in the 3 species of the genus Chionodraco (Channichthyidae). These new microsatellites could potentially be useful in further investigations on P. antarcticum for which many questions on population structure and exposition to global environment change are still open to debate.