Isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers for Canavalia cathartica and C. lineata (Fabaceae)

• Premise of the study: Microsatellite markers were developed for the sea‐dispersed legume Canavalia cathartica to investigate its genetic diversity and population structure. We also applied these microsatellite markers to the closely related species C. lineata.• Methods and Results: Ten primer sets were developed for C. cathartica, and all of the primers were amplified in C. lineata. The number of alleles per locus ranged from two to 13 and one to 10 for C. cathartica and C. lineata, respectively. The expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.375 to 0.870 and from 0.071 to 0.877 for C. cathartica and C. lineata, respectively.• Conclusions: The 10 microsatellite markers developed in this study can be used to analyze the population genetic structure of C. cathartica and other related taxa.