Relation of Seasonal Changes in the Mass of the Gonad and Somatic Tissues of the Zebra Ark Shell Arca Zebra to Environmental Factors

Reproductive Biology and Ecology of the Green Mussel Perna viridis: A Multidisciplinary Approach

“…Consistently, we also observed that the GSI value of P. viridis was positively correlated with Bacillariophyceae, Pyrrophyceae, and zooplankton, whereas it was negatively correlated with Chlorophyceae indicating the preferential selective feeding on certain groups of plankton by P. viridis during gametogenesis. This kind of selective feeding behavior was also reported for many other marine bivalve species [59][60][61]. The positive correlation between selective ingestion and GSI values further supports the concept of feeding behavior in bivalve that is related to the nutritional demands during gametogenesis [30].…”

“…Consistent with the correlation analysis, the PCA analysis revealed that the ingestion of different groups of plankton displayed a very overlapping pattern in different months except for October to December, particularly during the gonad development and maturation stages (see Figure 8). As gametogenesis is an energy-demanding process, the ingestion of a higher quantity of plankton during the gonad development stages further confirmed that P. viridis adopted opportunistic strategies to build up their gonads using energy from the available food [1] similar to other tropical bivalve species [60,61]. Among the different plankton groups, the observed large positive loadings of Bacillariophyceae, Pyrrophyceae, and zooplankton in PCA analysis during the gonad development stage further indicated the distinctive metabolic requirements of the specific nutrients by P. viridis during gametogenesis [30].…”