Determination of genetic structure of mediterranean mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis, L., 1819) populations

In this study, 10 different populations of female and male mussel, Mytilus galloprovincialis, in the Turkish Coasts were surveyed for morphometric and genetic analyses. For this purpose, eight morphometric characters and molecular analysis techniques such as PCR-RFLP method on two mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) gene segments (16S rRNA ve ND2-COIII) and DNA sequence analysis on COIII gene were used. After amplification of gonad and gill tissues of female and male mussels 16S rRNA and ND2-COIII gene segment, three and five restriction enzymes were used to cut 16S rRNA gene segment and ND2-COIII gene segment, respectively. Twenty haplotypes for only female (male not amplified) were determined for ND2-COIII region of mtDNA and three haplotypes for female and two haplotypes for male were determined 16S rRNA region of mtDNA. The highest haplotype and nucleotide diversity of 16S rRNA gene region was observed for the population of Zonguldak (0.6667±0.1318, 0.066024). The highest haplotype diversity of ND2-COIII gene region was observed for the population of Bodrum (0.6959±0.06187) and the highest nucleotide diversity of the same gen region was observed for the population of Çeşme (0.046856). Based on analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA), genetic structure was found to be low among populations. Values of genetic differences between population pairs (Fst) showed significant (p<0.05) genetic differentiation among populations. According to Mahalanobis matrix distance data which were calculated by discriminant analysis for morphometric characters and phylogenetic analysis with UPGMA tree, mussel populations were separated into two main branches as Black Sea and the Marmara and Aegean region