Weak Population Structure of Perna Viridis in Indo-Pacific Region based on Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA Marker
Abstract Perna viridis is a mussel commonly distributed along the Asian Indo-Pacific coasts. It is one of the main cultured species of that region. Previous studies focused mostly on the native populations within single countries; with the present study we analyzed the genetic diversity of P. viridis in a large study area, spanning from Oman to southern China. Three molecular markers were used, namely portions of the nuclear ITS region, and the mitochondrial COI gene and D-Loop region. The nuclear marker showed moderate levels of genetic diversity (haplotype diversity h = 0.543 to 0.897) and nucleotide diversity π = 0.0022 to 0.0064); whereas mitochondrial markers exhibited higher levels of genetic variability (h = 0.858 to 0.964 and π = 0.0012 to 0.0079). The estimates of inter-sample genetic divergence (FST) and the analysis of molecular variance highlighted that the Thai population is genetically divergent from the others. Our results showed the genetic variation of P. viridis at the rim of South China Sea and obtained the genetic basic information of P. viridis.