Development and characterization of 32 microsatellite loci in the giant grouper Epinephelus lanceolatus (Serranidae)

An economically important marine fish species, the giant grouper Epinephelus lanceolatus (Serranidae) is widely cultured in Taiwan and costal areas of China. We isolated and characterized 32 polymorphic microsatellite loci from a CA-enriched genomic library of giant grouper. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 to 7, with a mean of 4.69. Observed and expected heterozygosities per locus varied from 0.387 to 1.000 and from 0.377 to 0.843, respectively. Six loci significantly deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. After sequential Bonferroni's correction, only two loci showed deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, and no linkage disequilibrium was found between any pair of loci. These microsatellites can be useful tools for the study of population genetics in the giant grouper.