Determining the Similarities between Stations using the Haplotypes of the Species Cerastoderma glaucum (Poiret, 1789) from the Romanian Black Sea Infralittoral

Abstract

Cerastoderma glaucum (Poiret, 1789) represents one of the marine mollusk species found on the Romanian Black Sea soft bottom infralittoral. This species had been investigated in the past by morphological methods. Some problems concerning its biological, ecological and even behavioral aspects have remained unresolved. At the moment, molecular technique studies allow the completion of these gaps. In the present article we are aiming to identify this species by molecular methods and to perform a statistical analysis of the obtained data in order to determine the distribution of this species’ haplotypes on the littoral. With the aid of the Nucleospin® Tissue kits, through the PCR technique, the extraction and amplification of DNA has been performed to obtain the necessary data. The obtained sequences have been compared to the sequences from databases such as National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) to establish similarities. After the identification of the similar sequences, we have interpreted their distribution in different stations using the Kendall rank correlation coefficient. A number of 12 haplotypes which belong to 32 individuals from 5 stations have been identified. Using the Kendall rank correlation coefficient the identified haplotypes show different degrees of concordance with the standard haplotypes of this species. A significant statistical similarity appears in 81.14% out of the total 493 compared haplotype pairs. Out of these, 18% present perfect similarity, 76.25% good and 5.75% acceptable. The stations are similar regarding haplotypes, with some exceptions that are commented in the paper, similarities established by calculating the Kendall rank correlation coefficient.