Abstract
AbstractThe horse musselModiolus barbatusis a marine benthic bivalve, distributed mainly in the Mediterranean basin, that constitutes a fishery product of high economic importance and a promising candidate for aquaculture. The current study provides the first insights regarding the genetic profile ofM. barbatuspopulations from the eastern Mediterranean, by analysis of a partial segment of the mitochondrialCOIgene in individuals collected from five sampling localities within the Aegean Sea. To the best of our knowledge, the derived haplotypes represent the first DNA barcodes ofM. barbatusfrom the entire Mediterranean region. Maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis revealed thatM. barbatusfrom the North Sea andM. barbatusfrom the eastern Mediterranean may not belong to the same species and as a consequence, there might be three species of the genusModiolusin Europe. On the other hand, eastern MediterraneanM. barbatushaplotypes were found to be more closely related to the Asian-PacificModiolusspecies. All geographic populations analysed displayed high levels of genetic diversity, in terms of haplotype and nucleotide diversity and a considerable number of unique alleles. Divergence among populations was found at generally low levels, corresponding with the majority of pairwiseFstvalues not being significant. These findings suggest no population structure and high levels of gene flow, a common feature observed in marine bivalves with long pelagic larval phases.
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