Development of 26 novel microsatellite makers for the round whitefish (Prosopium cylindraceum) and successful polymorphic cross-specific amplification of seven previously developed salmonid markers

Round whitefish is a freshwater salmonid found within northern North America and north-eastern parts of Asia. Here we describe 26 novel, and seven previously described microsatellite loci that amplified in this species. Of these 33 markers, 12 were polymorphic, exhibiting between 2 and 5 alleles each. The remaining 21 loci are monomorphic. Observed and expected heterozygosities for the polymorphic markers ranged from 0.094 to 0.625 and 0.203 to 0.768 respectively. There was no evidence of linkage disequilibrium between any locus pairs, nor was there any evidence of null alleles. There were however, seven markers deviating from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, a result we attribute to relatively small sample and/or population size.