Characterization of tetranucleotide microsatellite loci in the African Savannah Elephant (Loxodonta africana africana)

Most African elephant (Loxodonta africana africana) populations are isolated and thus threatened by a loss of genetic diversity. As a consequence, genetic analysis of African elephant populations will play an increasing role in their conservation, and microsatellite loci will be an important tool in these analyses. Previously published sets of polymorphic microsatellites developed for African elephants are all dinucleotide repeats, which are prone to typing error. Here, we characterize 11 tetranucleotide microsatellite loci in the African elephant. All loci were polymorphic in 32 faecal samples and two tissue samples from 33 individual African savannah elephants.