Twenty polymorphic microsatellites in two of North Africa's most threatened ungulates: Gazella dorcas and Ammotragus lervia (Bovidae; Artiodactyla)

During the last century, North African ungulate species have suffered from habitat loss and over-hunting. Gazella dorcas (Antilopidae subfamily) and Ammotragus lervia (Caprinae subfamily) are among the ungulates that have suffered most. To help to protect these species, conservation programs and population genetics studies are being implemented. Here, we tested 30 published microsatellite primer-pairs from Bovids (cattle, sheep and goat) on eight individuals from each species. From the 30 loci tested, 20 amplified well and showed moderate allelic richness (3.75 and 4.65 mean number of alleles per species, respectively, for G. dorcas and A. lervia), and moderatly high heterozygosity (0.53 and 0.63 per species, respectively). These 20 polymorphic markers will facilitate conservation and genetic studies in these two species, and promise to be widely useful across divergent ungulate taxa.