The suitability assessment on site selection for bottom seeding scallop culture based on analytic hierarchy process

Scallop culture is an important way of bottom-seeding marine ranching,which is of great significance to improve the current situation of fishery resources.However,there are some problems in site-selection evaluation of marine ranching,such as imperfect criteria system,complex structure,untargeted criteria quantification,etc.In addition,no site-selection evaluation method of bottom-seeding culture areas for scallops is available.Therefore,we established a hierarchy structure model according to the analytic hierarchy process(AHP)theory,in which social,physical,chemical,and biological environments are used as main criteria,and marine functional zonation,water depth,current,water temperature,salinity,substrate type,water quality,sediment quality,red tide,phytoplankton,and zooplankton are used as sub-criteria,on which a multi-parameter evaluation system is set up.Meanwhile,the dualism method,assignment method,and membership function method were used to quantify sub-criteria,and a quantitative evaluation for the entire criteria was added,including the evaluation and analysis of two types of unsuitable environmental situations.By overall consideration in scallop yield,quality,and marine ranching construction objectives,the weight of the main criteria could be determined.Five grades in the suitability corresponding to the evaluation result were divided,and the Python language was used to create an evaluation system for efficient calculation and intuitive presentation of the evaluation outcome.Eight marine cases were simulated based on existing survey data,and the results prove that the method is feasible for evaluating and analyzing the site selection of bottom-seeding culture areas for scallops under various environmental situations.The proposed evaluation method can be promoted for the site selection of bottom-seeding marine ranching.This study provided theoretical and methodological references for the site selection evaluation of other types of marine ranching.

Characterization of Wnt genes in Argopecten scallops and their involvement in response to different temperature stresses in“Bohai Red”scallops

As“Bohai Red”scallops were originated from the hybrids between the Peruvian scallop(Argopecten purpuratus)and the bay scallop(Argopecten irradians)northern subspecies(Argopecten irradians irradians).Twelve Wnt members were identified from the two subspecies of bay scallop,and 13 Wnt genes were found in the genome of the Peruvian scallop.Protein structure analyses showed that most Wnt genes poses all 5 conserved motifs except Wnt1,Wnt2,Wnt6,and Wnt9 in the bay scallops and Wnt2 and Wnt9 in the Peruvian scallop.Unexpectedly,Wnt8 gene was present while Wnt3 was absent in both the bay scallops and the Peruvian scallop.Phylogenetic analysis revealed that Wnt3 might have disappeared in the early evolution of mollusks.The expression profile of Wnt genes in the“Bohai Red”exposed to different temperatures was examined by qRT-PCR.Results show that expression of Wnt genes responded differentially to temperature changes.The Wnt genes such as Wnt1,Wnt6,Wnt7,Wnt11,and WntA that responded slowly to low and high temperature stresses may be related to the maintenance of basic homeostasis.Other Wnt genes such as Wnt4,Wnt9,Wnt5,and Wnt2 that responded rapidly to low temperature may play an important role in organismal protection against low temperature stress.And yet some Wnt genes including Wnt10,Wnt16,and Wnt8 that responded quickly to high temperature stress may play key roles in response to high temperature stress.The results provide new insights into the evolution and function of Wnt genes in bivalves and eventually benefit culture of“Bohai Red”scallops.

Genetic diversity and specific markers in four scallop species, Patinopecten yessoensis, Argopecten irradians, Chlamys nobilis and C.farreri

The AFLP （amplified fragrnent length polymorphism）technique was used to analyse the genetic diversity in four scallop species, Patinopecten yessoensis, A rgopecten irradians, Chlamys nobilis and C. farreri. The genetic similarity indexes of these four species are 0.8415, 0.7863, 0.7190 and 0.6731, while Shannon diversity indexes are 43.52, 58.87, 80.16 and 92.83, respectively. As analyzed, the genetic diversities in two native species, i.e., C, farreri and C. nobilis, are higher than those in other two introduced species, A. irradians and P. yessoensis. The results also showed that C. nobilis and C, farreri shared the most common loci. The genetic distance indicated that C. nobilis and C. farreri are closely related. Moreover, out of 510 AFLP markers, 21 specific bands are found to distinguish the four species scallops and these markers may be applied to the specific germplasm characterization and molecular assistant classification in scallops.

Fossil Scallops from the Cenozoic Duho Formation of the Pohang Basin,Korea

A great number of fossil scallops were found from the Duho Formation of the Pohang Basin,Korea.Most of the specimens are preserved as slightly altered original carbonate shells,and internal and external molds were also observed in the specimens whose calcareous materials were washed out.In particular, external and internal molds are more frequently observed from the thin and small(less than 1 cm