Abstract:
Green lipped mussel (Perna canalicula) is a native NZ species and a valuable aquaculture commodity with sales in 2011 of NZD$218 million worldwide. The mussels are farmed around NZ and as such must survive in varying sea water temperatures. This project aims to characterise the physiological response of P. canalicula to heat stress. Understanding this response allows for biomarker selection, which can be used to identify families of mussels who are best able to survive warmer sea temperatures. Identification of biomarkers will also contribute to a mussel breeding programme which aims to provide spat to farmers around NZ. This study provides a broad characterisation of the response of mussels to heat stress at the metabolomic and transcriptomic level. At the transcriptomic level this was achieved through construction of a de novo transcriptome, which was subsequently used for analysis of gene expression. This is the first transcriptomic resource of its kind available for P. canalicula. At the metabolomic level, two different metabolomic data sets were investigated to identify metabolites which experienced a significant change in abundance across different sea water temperatures. This built on previous work while also contributing new knowledge about metabolite abundance in the mussels. Overall this study has identified many potential biomarkers for heat stress while also providing valuable new resources for future research into P. canalicula and other bivalves.
