Scottish Mytilus trossulus mussels retain ancestral mitochondrial DNA: Complete sequences of male and female mtDNA genomes

A first report on coexistence and hybridization of Mytilus trossulus and M. edulis mussels in Greenland

“…This situation is completely different from that at the Danish strait (Zbawicka et al 2014) and Scotland (Comesaña et al 1999;Zbawicka et al 2010Zbawicka et al , 2012 where hybridization between 'pure' taxa and hybrids is frequent.…”

“…The genetic structure of Greenland populations can be compared with Scotland, Baltic and North American populations where M. trossulus and M. edulis individuals coexist and hybridize (Riginos and Cunningham 2005;Zbawicka et al 2010Zbawicka et al , 2012Zbawicka et al , 2014. However, while European populations are characterized by large numbers of hybrids, including some with intermediate hybrid index values (backcrosses), Riginos and Cunningham (2005) and Toro et al (2002) described North American populations as having a low frequency of hybrid mussels.…”

“…It is thought that the complex originated from M. trossulus in the Pacific followed by colonization in the Northern Atlantic giving rise to both M. edulis and M. galloprovincialis (Vermeij 1992;Riginos and Cunningham 2005). While until recently it has been believed that the distribution of M. trossulus was restricted to the North Pacific, eastern Canada and the Baltic Sea (Riginos and Cunningham 2005), more recent research has documented its occurrence on the coasts of Scotland, Iceland, the Barents Sea, the White Sea and Norway (Beaumont et al 2008;Zbawicka et al 2010;Kijewski et al 2011;Väinölä and Strelkov 2011). The presence of M. edulis has been reported in the northern part of the Atlantic and European seas from the White and Barents Sea to the Atlantic coast of southern France and M. galloprovincialis in the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea and along the Atlantic coastline of Western Europe including the British northern islands (e.g., Väinölä and Hvilsom 1991;Borsa et al 1999;Bierne et al 2003;Riginos and Cunningham 2005;Riginos and Henzler 2008;Zbawicka et al 2012Zbawicka et al , 2014.…”

“…While M. edulis for example requires summer temperatures of a minimum of 4°C (Bennike and Wagner 2013), studies on larval development have shown that M. trossulus is less tolerant to temperatures at 10°C and above than M. edulis (Hayhurst and Rawson 2009). Further, M. trossulus has been found to inhabit lower salinity areas (Väinölä and Hvilsom 1991;Ridgway and Naevdal 2004;Zbawicka et al 2010Zbawicka et al , 2014Väinölä and Strelkov 2011). Experimental studies have shown that this taxon is less sensitive to lower salinities in the early ontogenetic stages than its congeners (Qiu et al 2002).…”

Mytilus mitochondrial DNA haplotypes in southeastern Australia

“…The genus is a major component of intertidal ecosystems in temperate and sub-polar regions of both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres (Hilbish et al 2000). Intensive investigations of the M. edulis species complex (Skibinski et al 1983, Varvio et al 1988, McDonald et al 1991, Rawson & Hilbish 1998, Hilbish et al 2000, Riginos et al 2004, Borsa et al 2007, Gérard et al 2008, Westfall & Gardner 2010, Zbawicka et al 2010) have revealed intricate patterns of colonisation and introgression.…”