The ecosystem of the Tibetan Plateau is extremely fragile, and a careful and long-term monitoring program is essential with the global climate changes and rapid social development. Phrynocephalus vlangalii is an excellent environmental indicator species, and therefore researchers developed twenty-five novel microsatellite DNA makers for it. All loci were polymorphic, with number of alleles ranging from 2 to 9.

The observed and expected heterozygosity of these loci ranged from 0.00 to 0.85 and from 0.13 to 0.80, respectively. Fifteen loci were found to be significantly deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and all loci were in linkage equilibrium.

Seven closely-related Phrynocephalus species were tested for cross-species amplifiability of those loci; all loci had higher cross-amplification rate, with 17 being successfully amplified in more than three species. These markers will provide useful tools for monitoring the influence of social development in the Tibetan Plateau.

Researchers from Chengdu Institute of Biology conducted this research.