Genetic diversity analysis of Asian clam Corbicula fluminea in the Hongze Lake based on mitochondrial cytochrome b gene

Abstract

The Asian clam Corbicula fluminea is a small bivalve with high nutritional and medical values. However, natural resources of C. fluminea have declined in many areas of China including the Hongze Lake. In this study, 119 individuals from 10 sites of this lake and 2 outgroups were analyzed using a 456 bp mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) gene segment. Totally, 19 polymorphic sites were detected, which defined 16 haplotypes. Polymorphism varied among the 10 populations with those at the water inlet being more polymorphic. Most F values among these populations were below 0.15 with the overall value of 0.060 (p < .05), meanwhile, the overall gene flow was 7.67, both of which indicated the low level of population differentiation in this lake. Neutrality test and mismatch analyses indicated that population explosion may have occurred in this lake. The results obtained in this study will provide useful information for artificial breeding and resource protection of this species in the Hongze Lake.

Phenotype and Genotype Characterisation of the Asian Clam of the Genus Corbicula Megerle von Mϋhlfeld, 1811 (Venerida, Cyrenidae) from the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia

“…This gene marker is reliable to be used since it has proved that genetics analysis was not following the phenotypic analysis of C. fluminea and C. leana (Yamada et al, 2009). Moreover, researchers had employed this mtDNA marker in characterising the Corbicula samples in Portugal (Gomes et al, 2016) and proved the genetics polymorphism of ten C. fluminea populations in Hongze Lake, China (Zhu et al, 2018). Particularly in a recent study, the similar topology of phylogenetic trees demonstrated that C. fluminea coincided with the morphotypes and may also elucidate their lineages ( Figure 5).…”

“…Primer pair of the C. fluminea cytb gene (F: 5'-GAAGGGTTCATGCTAACGGAG-3'; R: 5'-GTGGTGT ACTTATAGGGTCGGC-3') (Zhu et al, 2018) was used and produced 521 bp. The PCR amplification was performed in a total volume of 50 µl containing 25 µl PCR master mix (SMOBIO Technology, Inc. Taiwan), 0.5 µM forward and reverse primers, 1 µl of DNA template (50-100 ng) and 22 µl of nucleus free water which make up to 50 µl per tube.…”

“…Molecular approaches were employed in verifies the species and characterise the genotypes of the Corbicula. The mitochondrial and ribosomal DNA markers (mtDNA) were extensively employed in population analysis of aquatic species (Gomes et al, 2016;Zhu et al, 2018). The mtDNA marker such as cytochrome b (cytb) was used in several studies that proved successfully capable of identifying Corbicula species in low genetics polymorphism (Yamada et al 2010;Gomes et al, 2016;Zhu et al, 2018).…”