Sewage treatment plant associated genetic differentiation in the blue mussel from the Baltic Sea and Swedish west coast

Abstract

Human-derived environmental pollutants and nutrients that reach the aquatic environment through sewage effluents, agricultural and industrial processes are constantly contributing to environmental changes that serve as drivers for adaptive responses and evolutionary changes in many taxa. In this study, we examined how two types of point sources of aquatic environmental pollution, harbors and sewage treatment plants, affect gene diversity and genetic differentiation in the blue mussel in the Baltic Sea area and off the Swedish west coast (Skagerrak). Reference sites (REF) were geographically paired with sites from sewage treatments plant (STP) and harbors (HAR) with a nested sampling scheme, and genetic differentiation was evaluated using a high-resolution marker amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). This study showed that genetic composition in the Baltic Sea blue mussel was associated with exposure to sewage treatment plant effluents. In addition, mussel populations from harbors were genetically divergent, in contrast to the sewage treatment plant populations, suggesting that there is an effect of pollution from harbors but that the direction is divergent and site specific, while the pollution effect from sewage treatment plants on the genetic composition of blue mussel populations acts in the same direction in the investigated sites.

Keywords

Baltic Sea; Blue mussel; Environmental pollution; AFLP; Sewage treatment effluents; Harbor; Genetic differentiation

Published in

PeerJ
2016, volume: 4, article number: e2628
Publisher: PEERJ INC

SLU Authors

• Lind, Emma

  • Department of Aquatic Resources (SLU Aqua), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Global goals (SDG)

SDG14 Life below water

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2628

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/82717