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Population Genetics Of Freshwater Pearl Mussel (Margaritifera Margaritifera) In Central Massachusetts And Implications For Conservation, Stefanie Farrington

Biology

The freshwater pearl mussel Margaritifera margaritifera is an ecologically-important globally-endangered species, yet little is known about biodiversity and population genetics in North American populations. We focused our study on M. margaritifera from central and eastern Massachusetts, USA, to better understand the historical impact of damming and habitat fragmentation on local population structure and genetic diversity. In order to examine the local population genetics of M. margaritifera, we generated ~300 informative single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 59 individuals across 6 geographic locations, using the RAD-seq approach. We also gleaned genotypes from publicly available RNA-seq data of 23 French M. margaritifera samples. …