Variability and Cross-Species Amplification of Microsatellite Loci in Melolontha melolontha and Melolontha hippocastani (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae).

Cockchafers of the genus Melolontha (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae) seem to have a strong effect on forest management by inducing significant losses in the forest stands. Monitoring of the occurrence of Melolontha is carried out in many European countries, and the detailed data are available. But there is still a lack of data of the genetic population structure of Melolontha species as well as appropriate genetic markers. Amplification of microsatellite loci, developed for Melolontha melolontha, was performed in the closely related species Melolontha hippocastani. We successfully amplified the same eight polymorphic markers in both species of Melolontha. Generally, more alleles (from 5 to 15) were obtained for M. melolontha markers, and considerably fewer alleles (from 2 to 7) were observed for M. hippocastani. The mean observed heterozygosities were 0.676 and 0.192 respectively. The microsatellite markers tested in this study could be successfully used to study the population genetics of M. hippocastani. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]