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Abstract

Morphological studies of species with wide distribution range and high commercial value, such as the banded murex Hexaplex trunculus (Linnaeus, 1758), provide information on stock structure, which is the basis for understanding fish population dynamics and enable resource assessment for fisheries management. In the present study, we examined morphological variation among Atlantic and Mediterranean populations of H. trunculus using multivariate analysis. Our results supported the existence of four distinguishable stocks (Atlantic, Alboran, Western Mediterranean and Eastern Mediterranean), correctly classified 71.7% of specimens, and indicated significant degrees of variation in morphometric characteristics between regions. Examination of the contribution of each morphometric variable to the principal components and canonical functions indicated that differences among samples seemed to be associated with the shell and aperture length and width. Samples from the Atlantic Ocean and the Alboran Sea had the largest shell size and the greatest morphometric divergence. This strong morphometric differentiation appears to be associated with local environmental factors (exposure on the rocky shores, food availability and predation) and oceanographic current barriers.

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“…Due to its ecological importance as a generalist predator species, its impact on cultivated bivalves and its economic importance, many aspects related to H. trunculus were previously studied, for example: reproduction and larval development (Lahbib et al, 2011;Güler & Lök, 2014), aquaculture and stock management (González-Tizón, Fernández-Moreno, Vasconcelos, & Martínez-Lage, 2008;Lahbib, Abidli, & Trigui El Menif, 2010), morphology and population dynamics (Marzouk, Chenuil, Blel, & Saïd, 2016;Vasconcelos, Barroso, & Gasparet, 2016;Elhasni et al, 2017), food processing (Zarai et al, 2012), bioaccumulation and imposex (Anastasiou, Chatzinikolaou, Mandalakis, & Arvanitidis, 2016;Lahbib, Mleiki, & Trigui El Menifet, 2016;Cacciatore et al, 2018), Tyrian purple dye (Vasileiadou, Karapanagiotis, & Zotouet, 2016), as well as behavioral feeding mechanism (Rilov et al, 2004;Peharda & Morton, 2006;Morton et al, 2007;Sawyer, Zuschin, Riedel, & Stachowitsch, 2009;Güler & Lök, 2016). H. trunculus mostly accesses its preys flesh by drilling and/or chipping and can consume a broad size range of its bivalve prey; leaving abandoned shells after a few predation steps (Peharda & Morton, 2006).…”

Comparison of weight-length relationships and relative growth between intertidal and offshore populations of Hexaplex trunculus (Gastropoda: Muricidae) from the Gulf of Gabès (southern Tunisia)

“…Although some works reported morphometric relationships for H. trunculus (e.g. Dalla Via and Tappeiner 1981;Trigui El Menif et al 2006;Lahbib et al 2009a;Mutlu 2013;Marzouk et al 2016), only a few studies included W-L relationships, limited to particular regions and/or habitats, namely the Bizerte lagoon -Tunisia (Gharsallah et al 2004;Lahbib et al 2010) and the Ria Formosa lagoon -Portugal (Vasconcelos et al 2016).…”