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Updated: Jun 1, 2026
Development and Testing of Species-specific Quantitative PCR Assays for Environmental DNA Applications
Published on: November 5, 2020
Development and cross-species testing of western bluebird (Sialia mexicana) microsatellite primers
Elise D Ferree1, Janis L Dickinson, Danika Kleiber
1Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA, Department of Forest Sciences, Forest Sciences Centre, University of British Columbia, 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4, Department of Neurobiology and Behaviour, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA, Department of Biology, Gonzaga University, 502 E. Boone Avenue, Spokane, WA 99258 USA, Biology Department, Davidson College, PO Box 7040, Davidson, NC 28035, USA.
Abstract:
Western and eastern bluebirds (Sialia mexicana and S. sialis) are socially monogamous passerines that engage in extra-pair copulations. We obtained microsatellites from S. mexicana and optimized and characterized 15 microsatellite DNA loci in 60 individuals of this species. Primer pairs yielded an average of 13 alleles per locus in western bluebirds (range 3-35 alleles) with an average observed heterozygosity of 0.68 (range 0.27-0.88). All 15 loci also successfully amplified in S. sialis (n = 24), with an average of 11.5 alleles per locus (range 4-26) and an average observed heterozygosity of 0.59 (range 0.22-0.90).
