In the present study, we used next-generation sequencing to develop 12 novel microsatellite markers for genetic structural analysis of Dorcus titanus castanicolor (Lucanidae; Coleoptera), a popular pet insect in China, Korea, and Japan. We identified 52,357 microsatellite loci in 339,287,381 bp of genomic sequence and selected 19 of the loci based on their PCR amplification efficiency and polymorphism. The 19 selected markers were then tested for the presence of null alleles and linkage disequilibrium. We did not detect any evidence of null alleles; however, four pairs of loci (DT03 and DT11, DT05 and DT26, DT08 and DT26, DT26 and DT35) exhibited linkage disequilibrium. Thus, we assessed the genetic diversity of a D. titanus castanicolor population from the Daejeon region of Korea (n = 22) using 13 markers. Among them, one marker (DT17) deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Therefore, 12 markers may be useful for further analyzing the genetic diversity of D. titanus castanicolor.
Keywords: Coleoptera; Dorcus titanus castanicolor; HiSeq; Korea; Lucanidae; microsatellite marker; next-generation sequencing.