Premise of the study: Polymorphic microsatellite markers were developed for the symbiotic green alga Trebouxia decolorans to study fine-scale population structure and clonal diversity. •
Methods and results: Using Illumina pyrosequencing, 20 microsatellite primer sets were developed for T. decolorans. The primer sets were tested on 43 individuals sampled from four subpopulations in Germany. The primers amplified di-, tri-, and tetranucleotide repeats with three to 15 alleles per locus, and the unbiased haploid diversity per locus ranged from 0.636 to 0.821. •
Conclusions: The identified microsatellite markers will be useful to study the genetic diversity, dispersal, and reproductive mode of this common lichen photobiont.
Keywords: Anaptychia ciliaris; Xanthoria parietina; photobiont; population genetics; selectivity; symbiosis.