G C A T T A C G G C A T genes Article Genetic Evaluation of Natural Populations of the Endangered Conifer Thuja koraiensis Using Microsatellite Markers by Restriction-Associated DNA Sequencing Lu Hou 1,†, Yanhong Cui 1,†, Xiang Li 1, Wu Chen 2, Zhiyong Zhang 3, Xiaoming Pang 1 and Yingyue Li 1,* 1 National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China;
[email protected] (L.H.);
[email protected] (Y.C.);
[email protected] (X.L.);
[email protected] (X.P.) 2 The Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China;
[email protected] 3 Beijing Key Laboratory of Ornamental Plants Germplasm Innovation and Molecular Breeding, National Engineering Research Center for Floriculture, Beijing Laboratory of Urban and Rural Ecological Environment, Key Laboratory of Genetics and Breeding in Forest Trees and Ornamental Plants of Ministry of Education, School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +86-010-6233-6817 † These authors contributed equally to this work. Received: 10 March 2018; Accepted: 13 April 2018; Published: 17 April 2018 Abstract: Thuja koraiensis Nakai is an endangered conifer of high economic and ecological value in Jilin Province, China. However, studies on its population structure and conservation genetics have been limited by the lack of genomic data. Here, 37,761 microsatellites (simple sequence repeat, SSR) were detected based on 875,792 de novo-assembled contigs using a restriction-associated DNA (RAD) approach.