0000000000306202
AUTHOR
Jeffry B. Mitton
Population structure of Brachidontes pharaonis (P. Fisher, 1870) (Bivalvia, Mytilidae) in the Mediterranean Sea, and evolution of a novel mtDNA polymorphism
Abstract Brachidontes pharaonis (Fisher P, 1870) is an Indo-Pacific mussel that has colonized the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal. Mussels may have migrated by natural dispersal of pelagic larvae, or they may have been transported on the hulls of ships, or in ballast water, or by some combination of these. Mitochondrial COI sequences (618 bp) from 101 mussels from six localities in the central and eastern Mediterranean Sea and from one site in the Red Sea were used to describe population structure. Analysis of molecular variance indicated that frequencies differed among populations, and that 92% of the variation resided within populations. The majority of haplotypes were private allele…
A mitochondrial phylogeography of Brachidontes variabilis (Bivalvia: Mytilidae) reveals three cryptic species
This study examined genetic variation across the range of Brachidontes variabilis to produce a molecular phylogeography. Neighbour joining (NJ), minimum evolution (ME) and maximum parsimony (MP) trees based on partial mitochondrial DNA sequences of 16S-rDNA and cytochrome oxidase (COI) genes revealed three monophyletic clades: (1) Brachidontes pharaonis s.l. from the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea; (2) B. variabilis from the Indian Ocean; (3) B. variabilis from the western Pacific Ocean. Although the three clades have never been differentiated by malacologists employing conventional morphological keys, they should be ascribed to the taxonomic rank of species. The nucleotide divergences b…