Polymorphic markers for the sea cucumber Parastichopus californicus

Five polymorphic markers were isolated from a Parastichopus californicus genomic DNA library. In addition, a method was developed to extract DNA from both muscle and skin tissue. The number of alleles at these loci ranged from three to 14. Observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.2 to 0.9. These markers, the first of their type for a sea cucumber species, will prove useful for exploration of the population structure of P. californicus.