The big blue octopus, Octopus cyanea, occurs on coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific region from East Africa to the Hawaiian Islands, wherein it is of great ecological and socio-economic importance. However, many components of its intraspecific biodiversity, such as population structure, are unresolved due to a lack of informative genetic markers. To address this issue, which may compromise conservation and sustainability efforts, the development and characterisation of the first species-specific microsatellite loci for O. cyanea are described here. The eight loci were characterised by the genotyping of 40 adults from Madagascar, which revealed an average of 13.5 alleles per locus (range 9–18). The observed and expected heterozygosity per locus ranged from 0.432 to 0.949 and from 0.481 to 0.989, respectively. No evidence of linkage disequilibrium was detected between pairs of loci. Genotype proportions at six loci conformed to Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium expectations, with two loci exhibiting significant heterozygote deficits. These loci are applicable to multiple areas of eco-evolutionary research and, thus, represent a valuable resource for future studies of O. cyanea.

中文翻译：

---

大蓝章鱼章鱼蓝藻的多态性微卫星基因座的分离和表征。

蓝色大章鱼，蓝章，发生在整个印度洋-太平洋地区的珊瑚礁从东非到夏威夷群岛，其中它的巨大的生态和社会经济意义。但是，由于缺乏有益的遗传标记，其种内生物多样性的许多组成部分（如种群结构）尚未得到解决。为了解决这个问题，可能损害保护和可持续发展的努力，第一个种属特异性微卫星位点的开发和表征O.霞在这里描述。八个位点的特征是对马达加斯加的40位成年人进行了基因分型，每个位点平均显示13.5个等位基因（范围9-18）。每个基因座的观察到和预期的杂合度分别为0.432至0.949和0.481至0.989。在各对基因座之间未发现连锁不平衡的迹象。六个基因座的基因型比例符合Hardy-Weinberg平衡预期，其中两个基因座表现出明显的杂合子缺陷。这些基因座适用于生态进化研究的多个领域，因此，它们是蓝藻未来研究的宝贵资源。