Isolation and cross-amplification of fifteen microsatellites for oil-rewarding Calceolaria species (Calceolariaceae)

Calceolaria is a diversified American genus whose species are mainly visited by oil-collecting bees, representing a highly specialized plant-pollinator system. However, although this is a unique plant system, different aspects of its ecology and evolution remain unexplored. In this study we characterized fifteen polymorphic microsatellites for four Andean Calceolaria species using next-generation sequencing. The number of alleles per locus (Na) for the study species ranged from 2 to 11, and the observed (Ho) and expected (He) heterozygosity ranged from 0 to 0.85 and 0.3 to 0.87, respectively, while FIS ranged from 0.03 to 1.0. Among the four species, C. cana showed the greatest genetic diversity, followed by C. filicaulis. C. arachnoidea and C. lanigera showed similar, lower genetic diversity. These makers are a useful tool to conduct futures studies on population structure and gene flow. Specifically, this set of markers will be helpful to estimate selfing rates as a first approximation to the understanding of the role of specialization in plant mating system evolution