Development and characterization of 30 polymorphic microsatellite markers for the Atlantic surfclam, Spisula solidissima (Dillwyn, 1817).

Thirty polymorphic microsatellite markers were developed for the Atlantic surfclam, Spisula solidissima, from an enriched library and characterized in 24 clams from a wild population. The number of alleles ranged from 3 to 16 per locus. The expected and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.1942 to 0.9238 and 0.0833 to 0.875 respectively. Six loci showed significant (P < 0.05 after Bonferroni correction) deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, probably because of the presence of null alleles. Three primer pairs amplified duplicated loci with two involving tandem mini-satellite repeats. Most of the microsatellite markers developed here should be useful for genetic studies in this species.