Development of ten polymorphic microsatellite loci for the sea snake Hydrophis elegans (Elapidae: Hydrophiinae) and cross-species amplification for fifteen marine hydrophiine species

Abstract

We developed ten microsatellite loci for the elegant sea snake, Hydrophis elegans, from partial genomic DNA libraries using a repeat enrichment protocol. Eight loci had nine or more alleles per locus (maximum 20), while the other two had three and seven. All ten loci amplified successfully in 11 of the 15 additional hydrophiine sea snake species screened. Nine loci amplified successfully for three species and eight amplified successfully for the remaining species. Based on this highly successful cross-amplification we expect these ten loci to be useful markers for investigating population genetic structure, gene flow and parentage for all sea snake species from the Hydrophis group.