Development of nuclear microsatellite markers for the fonio, Digitaria exilis (Poaceae), an understudied West African cereal.

PREMISE OF THE STUDY

We developed nuclear microsatellite primers to explore the genetic diversity, population genetic structure, and evolutionary history of the fonio (Digitaria exilis), an understudied cereal cultivated in West Africa.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We used a microsatellite-enriched library approach to isolate and characterize 38 nuclear primer pairs (31 di-, five tri-, and two tetranucleotide repeats), of which 21 were polymorphic and exhibited a clear pattern in 36 accessions from West Africa. The number of alleles per locus ranged from two to 22, with a mean of 4.71, and expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.03 to 0.93.

CONCLUSIONS

The developed set of 21 polymorphic SSR markers will provide tools for population and evolutionary genetics studies of the cultivated fonio.