Characterization of single nucleotide polymorphism markers for the green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas)

We present data on 29 new single nucleotide polymorphism assays for the green sea turtle, Chelonia mydas. DNA extracts from 39 green turtles were used for two methods of single nucleotide polymorphism discovery. The first approach employed an amplified fragment length polymorphism technique. The second technique screened a microsatellite library. Allele-specific amplification assays were developed for high-throughput single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping and tested on two Pacific C. mydas nesting populations. Observed heterozygosities ranged from 0 to 0.95 for a Hawaiian population and from 0 to 0.85 for a Galapagos population. Each of the populations had one locus out of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, SSCM2b and SSCM5 for Hawaii and Galapagos, respectively. No loci showed significant genotypic linkage disequilibrium across an expanded set of four Pacific nesting populations. However, two loci, SSCM4 and SSCM10b showed linkage disequilibrium across three populations indicating possible association.