The evolutionary and biogeographic relevance of oceanic islands in the NE Atlantic: a population genetic study of the marine bivalve Cardita calyculata (Linnaeus, 1758)

Two individuals of Cardita calyculata from the Azores were used to for the creation of an SSR library to design species-specific primers through low coverage shot gun sequencing. The resulting primers were used to obtain allele sequences of microsatellites which could be informative of population movements through geological time of C. calyculata through-out the North-East Atlantic and understand the biogeographic role of oceanic islands within such context. Populations from the Cnaries, Madeira, Azores and the Mediterranean were analysed and compared.