Isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from the budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus

The budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus, belongs to a group of birds that are among the most common captive-held avian species that are also most threatened. Budgies are also a valuable resource as model species for many important vertebrate characteristics including auditory and ageing. Several microsatellite-enriched genomic libraries were developed using standard protocols. Twelve of 20 primer pairs developed from microsatellite-containing sequences were codominant and polymorphic when tested on 21 birds from three different states. The number of alleles detected ranged from two to four, with the expected and observed heterozygosities ranging from 0.09 to 0.61 and from 0.00 to 0.85, respectively. The genomic libraries and the primers described here will be useful in characterizing budgies.