Abstract
A new polymerase chain reaction‐based screening method for microsatellites is presented. Using this method, we isolated 12 microsatellite loci from Drosophila buzzatii , two of which were X‐linked. We applied the other 10 microsatellite loci to the analysis of genetic variation in five natural populations of D. buzzatii . Two populations were from the species’ original distribution in Argentina, whereas the other three were from Europe (two) and Australia that were colonized 200 and 65 years ago, respectively. Allelic variation was much larger in the original populations than in the colonizing ones and there was a tendency to decreased heterozygosity in the colonizing populations. We used three different statistical procedures for detecting population bottlenecks. All procedures suggested that the low variability in the populations in the Old World was not the result of the recent population decline, but was due to a founder effect followed by a population expansion. In fact, one procedure which detects population expansions and declines based on the genealogical history of microsatellite data suggested that an expansion had taken place in all the colonized populations.