Twenty microsatellite loci from Chinese soft-shelled Turtles Trionyx sinensis, a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List

The Chinese soft-shelled turtle ( Trionyx sinensis ) is endemic to China and is one of the most abundant edible turtle in Southeast Asia. The genetic resources of the species sharply degraded for arbitrary artificial propagation and farming and overfishing wild population. As a result, the turtle has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. In this study, 20 polymorphic microsatellite loci were isolated and characterized in a stock through biotinylated probes for hybridization and library screening. The number of alleles varies between 7 and 18, and the observed and expected heterozygosity at the population level ranged from 0.2220 to 0.8333 and 0.7635 to 0.9431, respectively, and only a single locus deviated significantly from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium ( P