Characterization of 21 microsatellite loci from the invasive Mediterranean gecko ( Hemidactylus turcicus )
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TECHNICAL NOTE
Characterization of 21 microsatellite loci from the invasive Mediterranean gecko (Hemidactylus turcicus) Kwadwo A. Owusu • Jillian T. Detwiler Charles D. Criscione
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Received: 9 December 2011 / Accepted: 17 December 2011 / Published online: 25 December 2011 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract It is crucial to understand the dispersal potential of invasive species to predict how biological invasions spread. Molecular data can provide unique insights into sources, routes, and mechanisms of invasion. Twenty-one microsatellite markers were developed for the Mediterranean gecko (Hemidactylus turcicus), a species native to southwest Asia that has successfully invaded much of the southern US. The loci were characterized with geckos collected from two locations at Texas A&M University. Eighteen of the 21 loci exhibited polymorphism (2–8 alleles/locus). Both gecko populations were in Hardy– Weinberg equilibrium. Our preliminary screen detected significant population structure at a small scale (650 m). Therefore, these markers will be useful to assess dispersal at varying geographic ranges. Keywords Invasive species Mediterranean gecko Hemidactylus Microsatellites Dispersal
Historical and observational data on the spread of invasive species can be limited. Thus, it can be difficult to understand the sources, routes, and mechanisms of species invasions. Molecular data can help to determine the demographic history and dispersal dynamics of invasive species (Handley et al. 2011). We isolated and characterized 21 microsatellite markers for the Mediterranean gecko (Hemidactylus turcicus) and tested their ability to assess fine scale population genetic structure. This gecko is native to the Mediterranean regions of Africa, Asia, and Europe, K. A. Owusu J. T. Detwiler (&) C. D. Criscione Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA e-mail: [email protected]
but is now widely established in the southern US, Mexico, Panama and Cuba (Ro¨dder and Lo¨tters 2009). Moreover, H. turcicus serves as a host for both local and exotic parasites (Criscione and Font 2001). Consequently, the spread of this species is a concern because the presence of the gecko may lead to increased parasite transmission within native lizard populations. Understanding the dispersal of the gecko will not only inform us on how invasive species spread, but also on the role of host invasions in parasite transmission. Microsatellite DNA library construction, enrichment, and screening followed methods in Detwiler and Criscione (2011). These steps were completed by S. Bogdanowicz at the Evolutionary Genetics Core Facility at Cornell University, US. Seventy-six colonies from the enriched library were sequenced, but only 44 sequences contained unique microsatellites. Primers were designed for 21 of these sequences using Primer3 (Rozen and Skaletsky 2000). To test the utility of the markers to detect genetic differentiation at a local scale, we characterized the loci using geckos collect
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