Paul Rawson
School of Marine Sciences
University of Maine
Orono, ME 04469
207.581.4326
prawson@maine.edu
http://www.ume.maine.edu/~marine/rawson.htm
The blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) is harvested extensively in the northeastern
U.S. and the Atlantic Canadian provinces. Although it has long been assumed that
blue mussel populations consisted solely of a single species, high frequencies
of a second species, M. trossulus, have recently been observed in eastern
Maine and the Bay of Fundy. M. trossulus is not as robust or productive
as M. edulis and is considered undesirable for suspended raft culture.
Rawson will use molecular biological assays to identify blue mussels to species
and provide detailed information on the distribution and settlement patterns
of M. trossulus. This information is crucial to decisions regarding the
siting of mussel culture facilities and could be used to identify areas to collect
juvenile mussel “spat” so the industry could preferentially culture the more
desirable species.
2-year project, 2000-2002
Year 1: $39,994
Year 2: $39,999
Total: $79,993
Associated Publications
Rawson, P., 2005, Nonhomologous Recombination Between the Large Unassigned Region of the Male and Female Mitochondrial Genomes in the Mussel, Mytilus trossulus, Journal of Molecular Evolution, 61:717-732.
Rawson, P. D., A. McGowan, and C. Bartlett, 2004, Temporal Variation in the Settlement of Blue Mussels (Mytilus edulis C. Linnaeus, 1758 and M. trossulus Gould, 1850) in Eastern Maine, Journal of Shellfish Research, 23:521-528.
Maloy, A. P., B. J. Barber, and P. D. Rawson, 2003, Gametogenesis in a Sympatric Population of Blue Mussels, Mytilus edulis and Mytilus trossulus, from Cobscook Bay, Maine, USA, Journal of Shellfish Research, 22:119-123.
Rawson, P. D., C. Slaughter, P. O. Yund, 2003, Patterns of gamete incompatibility between the blue mussels Mytilus edulis and M. trossulus, Marine Biology, 143: 317-325.
Rawson, P. D., C. Slaughter, and P. Yund, 2002, Asymmetric Gametic Incompatibility Among Two Species of Marine Mussel, American Zoologist, 41: 1564.
Susan Limbeck, 2003, The role of larval thermal tolerance in species distribution of blue mussels within the Gulf of Maine, M.S. in Marine Biology, University of Maine, Orono
For a full list of publications associated with research projects, please visit our Journal Repints page.