Tetranucleotide microsatellites from the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta)

We describe primers and polymerase chain reaction conditions to amplify 15 tetranucleotide microsatellite loci from the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta). The primers were tested on 30 individuals that nested along the Georgia, USA coast. The primer pairs developed in this study yielded an average of 13.9 alleles per locus (range of 10-21), an average observed heterozygosity of 0.91 (range 0.79-1.00), and an average polymorphic information content of 0.88 (range 0.84-0.92).