NONAMPLIFYING ALLELES AT MICROSATELLITE LOCI - A CAUTION FOR PARENTAGE AND POPULATION STUDIES

While genotyping wild red deer (Cervus elaphus) at microsatellite loci for paternity assignment, we found three loci (MAF65, BOVIRBP and Ce1 JP23) with segregating nonamplifying alleles. Nonamplifying alleles we re detected through mismatches between known mother-off spring pairs a nd by significant deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibria. In a wide range of molecular ecology applications, and especially in parentage assignment, the possible existence of undetectable alleles must be tak en into account; this may be particularly important for microsatellite data.