Microsatellites Microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSR) are hypervariable genomic regions characterized by short tandem repeat sequences of up to seven nu-cleotide units that are distributed throughout the genomes of most Eukaryotes (Powell et al. 1996). The variability of the number of repeat units at a par-ticuIar locus and the conservation of the sequences flanking the repeat make microsatellites valuable genetic markers. They provide information for iden-tification and on genetic diversity and relationships among genotypes. For example, DNA fingerprinting with multilocus microsatellite probes suggested that Cape Town isolates of Arm illaria mellea s.s. were introduced from Europe more than 300 years ago (Coetzee et al. 2001). Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) AFLP is a powerful tool for DNA fingerprinting and is based on (1) total ge-nomic restriction, (2) ligation of primer adapters, and (3) unselective followed by selective
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