Evolution of trinucleotide microsatellite sequence variation across the Polistinae, a social wasp subfamily

Abstract

I examined sequences of 3 microsatellite loci that were derived from Polistes bellicosus investigated their evolution in 78 species from four tribes in the Polistinae subfamily of wasps. I found that the basic repeat structure of the microsatellite repeat region at these three loci was conserved across species at the subgenus level. Besides changes in the number of repeats, base substitutions were the dominant mutations in the repeat regions. The tribe from which the loci were isolated had longer repeat regions and more perfect repeats that the tribes at the same loci. At microsatellite flanking regions, I found that a high proportion of insertions duplicated 1-4 bases of their preceding sequences. Microsatellite repeats may originate from these such little insertions.