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Article 2

Variation of growth performance of the striped venus clam Chamelea gallina (Mollusca: Bivalvia) (Linnaeus, 1758) in relation to environmental variables along the southern part of its geographic range

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M. Delgado1*, L. Silva1, P. Moura2, R. Sánchez-Leal1, M. B. Gaspar2
1 Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Centro Oceanográfico de Cádiz, Muelle de Levante, s/n. 11006, Cádiz, Spain
2 Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera, I.P. (IPMA), Avenida 5 de Outubro s/n, 8700-305 Olhão, Portugal
* Corresponding author: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

ABSTRACT. – This study reports relative growth, shell length-age keys and growth performanceindices (overall growth performance (OGP) and phi prime) for the striped venus Chamelea gallina from the Huelva coast in southwest (SW) Spain. The morphometric relationship shell height (SH)/shell length (SL) presented isometric growth whereas SL/shell width (SW)and SL/weight (W) displayed negative allometric growth. Shell length at age was estimatedthrough length-frequency distribution (LF) and internal shell growth bands by acetate peelmethod (AP). The C. gallina population consists mainly of three age classes with shell lengths around 13-15 mm for the first year, 25 mm for the second year and 30 mm for the third year. The OGP and phi prime values obtained in the present study are within the range of values for other C. gallina populations from the Gulf of Cádiz. Nevertheless, marked differences in growth performancewere observed between populations from the Black Sea (lower growth performance)and from other locations along the southern distribution area of this species, which may be relatedto the low levels of temperature (SST), salinity (SSS) and chlorophyll-a (chl-a) concentrationthat exhibit large intra-annual fluctuations.

You are here: Volume 65 (2015) Issue 4 Article 2
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