Raw sequencing data of White grouper from this article was deposited under GenBank accession

The white grouper (Epinephelus aeneus) is a promising candidate for domestication and aquaculture due to its fast growth, excellent taste and high market price. A linkage map is an essential framework for mapping QTL for economic traits, and study of genome evolution. DNA of a single individual was deep-sequenced and microsatellite markers were identified in 177 of the largest scaffolds of the sequence assembly. Success rate of developing polymorphic homologous markers was 94.9 % as compared to 63.1 % of heterologous markers from other grouper species. Of the 12 adult mature fish present in the broodstock tank, two males and two females were identified as parents of the assigned offspring by parenthood analysis using 34 heterologous markers. A single full-sib family of 48 individuals was established for construction of first-generation linkage maps based on genotyping data of 222 microsatellites. The markers were assigned to 24 linkage groups in accordance to the 24 chromosomal pairs. The female and male maps consisting of 203 and 20