Isolation and Characterization of Microsatellite Loci for Cotesia plutellae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae).

Fourteen polymorphic microsatellite loci were isolated in this transcriptome-based data analysis for , which is an important larval parasitoid of the worldwide pest . A subsequent test was performed for a wild population ( = 32) from Fuzhou, Fujian, southeastern China, to verify the effectiveness of the 14 microsatellite loci in future studies on genetic diversity. The observed number of alleles ranged from two to six. The expected and observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.123 to 0.316 and from 0.141 to 0.281, respectively. The polymorphism information content () value ranged from 0.272 to 0.622. Potentially due to the substructure of the sampled population, three of the 14 microsatellite loci deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (). Further, loci C6, C22, and C31 could be amplified in and , suggesting the transferability of these three polymorphic loci to other species of Hymenoptera.