Isolation and characterization of microsatellite loci in the critically endangered Puerto Rican parrot ( Amazona vittata
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MICROSATELLITE LETTERS
Isolation and characterization of microsatellite loci in the critically endangered Puerto Rican parrot (Amazona vittata) Y. Afanador • J. Velez-Valentı´n • R. Valentı´n de la Rosa J.-C. Martı´nez-Cruzado • B. vonHoldt • T. K. Oleksyk
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Received: 8 May 2014 / Accepted: 19 May 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract The Puerto Rican parrot (Amazona vittata) is one of the most endangered avian species in the world. Its dramatic decline to near extinction in 1975 was thwarted only by the establishment of two captive breeding programs. To date, conservation efforts resulted in a significant population recovery with over 400 living birds either at the two captive breeding sites, or released into the wild. However, despite nearly 40 years of conservation efforts, very few specific tools are available to study genetic diversity of this species. Here we present 18 highly polymorphic microsatellite markers developed using the genome sequence of A. vittata and verified in a population sample. The markers cross-amplify in two sister species from other islands: the Hispaniolan (A. ventralis) and the Cuban (A. leucocephala) parrots. The primer pairs we developed will eventually aid the breeding efforts by
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12686-014-0232-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Y. Afanador J.-C. Martı´nez-Cruzado T. K. Oleksyk (&) Biology Department, University of Puerto Rico at Mayagu¨ez, Mayagu¨ez, PR 00680, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. Velez-Valentı´n R. Valentı´n de la Rosa Conservation Program of the Puerto Rican Parrot, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Rio Grande, PR 00745, USA J. Velez-Valentı´n R. Valentı´n de la Rosa The Recovery Program of the Puerto Rican Parrot at the Rı´o Abajo State Forest, Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales de Puerto Rico, Arecibo, PR 00613, USA B. vonHoldt Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
providing unique identifiers for individual birds, and in the population studies monitoring recovery of critically endangered A. vittata. Keywords Amazona vittata A. ventralis A. leucocephala Puerto Rican parrot Hispaniolan parrot Cuban parrot
Introduction The Puerto Rican parrot (Amazona vittata) is one of the most endangered bird species in the world, and it is the only non-extinct native parrot on the United States territory (IUCN 2012). We were able to search the genome sequence for polymorphic short tandem repeats (STRs) that can be useful to monitor the recovery progress and population dynamics of this critically endangered parrot species. We also verified that these polymorphic loci could be amplified in two closely related Amazona species from the neighboring Greater Antilles: A. ventralis from Hispaniola and A. leucocephala from Cuba in order to develop a set of markers useful for analysis in the branch Caribbean Amazons of the Central American origin.
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