Sinanodonta woodiana (Lea, 1834) is a large Unionid species with
a real invasion success. It colonized Europe, Central America,
the Indonesian Islands and recently North America. The species
life cycle involves a larval parasitic stage on freshwater fish
species which contributes to the spread of the mussel. In this
paper we describe, for the first time, eight polymorphic
microsatellite loci for the species Sinanodonta woodiana. The
genetic screening of individuals confirmed that all loci were
highly polymorphic. The number of alleles per locus ranged from
7 to 14 and the observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.650 to
0.950. These loci should prove useful to study the species
population genetics which could help to infer important aspects
of the invasion process. invasive species; microsatellite;
population genetics; range expansion; native area Unionid shells
are characterized by an outer aragonitic prismatic layer and an
inner nacreous layer. The prisms of the outer shell layer are
composed of single-crystal