Piria Marina, Špelić Ivan, Nikolić Slađana, Bakiu Rigers, Hamilton Joanna S, Gardner Jonathan P A
Department of Fisheries, Apiculture, Wildlife Management and Special Zoology, University of Zagreb Faculty of Agriculture, Zagreb, Croatia.
Department of Ecology and Vertebrate Zoology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Łódź, Łódź, Poland.
J Morphol. 2025 Apr;286(4):e70043. doi: 10.1002/jmor.70043.
Geometric morphometry is effective in distinguishing bivalve species and populations, including the economically and environmentally important Mediterranean mussel, Mytilus galloprovincialis. Although widely distributed, shell shape variation in M. galloprovincialis along the eastern Adriatic Sea has been infrequently studied. Farming practices and environmental conditions may affect the development of shell shape, as has been reported in the Mytilus genus from numerous locations globally. Building on earlier genetic analyses of mussels collected along a natural environmental gradient, this study aimed to identify shell landmark differentiation between wild and cultured populations and among northern, middle, and southern populations of the eastern Adriatic Sea using a geometric morphometric approach. Samples from 12 sites in Croatia, Montenegro, and Albania, including 4 aquaculture farms, were examined for variation in 9 internal shell landmarks. Wild populations exhibited a more extended posterior adductor muscle scar and a more elongated shape compared to farmed populations. Mussels from low salinity environments in the north and south exhibited an elongated shell shape compared to high salinity environments. Southern populations exhibited an extended posterior adductor muscle scar, along with an elongation of the lateral ligament and ventral umbo orientation that caused a concave shape of the ventral shell border compared to northern populations. The differences in environmental conditions in the Adriatic Sea, such as reduced salinity in Boka Kotorska Bay (Montenegro) in the south and Limski Bay (Croatia) in the north, likely play a role in influencing the variability of shell landmarks. These results may be applied to farming practices so that high-quality spat are collected from source sites with environmental conditions that match the farm site to which the spat are transferred. Overall, these results provide valuable insight into how M. galloprovincialis shell landmarks respond to environmental variation at large (hundreds of kilometres) spatial scale.
几何形态测量学在区分双壳贝类物种和种群方面很有效，其中包括具有经济和环境重要性的地中海贻贝，即加利福尼亚贻贝（Mytilus galloprovincialis）。尽管加利福尼亚贻贝分布广泛，但亚得里亚海东部沿岸的该物种壳形变异却鲜有研究。养殖方式和环境条件可能会影响壳形的发育，全球众多地点的贻贝属研究均有此报道。基于此前对沿自然环境梯度采集的贻贝进行的遗传分析，本研究旨在采用几何形态测量学方法，确定亚得里亚海东部野生和养殖种群之间以及北部、中部和南部种群之间的壳地标差异。对来自克罗地亚、黑山和阿尔巴尼亚12个地点的样本进行了检测，其中包括4个水产养殖场，以研究9个壳内部地标点的变异情况。与养殖种群相比，野生种群的后闭壳肌疤痕更宽，形状更细长。与高盐度环境中的贻贝相比，来自北部和南部低盐度环境的贻贝壳形更细长。与北部种群相比，南部种群的后闭壳肌疤痕更宽，同时侧韧带延长，腹侧脐孔方向导致腹侧壳缘呈凹形。亚得里亚海环境条件的差异，如南部黑山的博卡科托尔斯卡湾和北部克罗地亚的利姆斯基湾盐度降低，可能在影响壳地标变异方面发挥了作用。这些结果可应用于养殖实践，以便从环境条件与幼贝转移到的养殖场相匹配的来源地采集高质量的幼贝。总体而言，这些结果为加利福尼亚贻贝壳地标如何在大（数百公里）空间尺度上响应环境变异提供了有价值的见解。
