Morphological and molecular detection, distribution and environmental demands of pilumnus spinulosus kessler, 1861 in the Black Sea coasts of Turkiye

Abstract

The Pilumnus spinulosus species belonging to the Pilumnus genus was obtained with the sampling study carried out from the estuary of the Black Sea coast in 2017-2020. Temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, TOC parameters were measured seasonally at the stations where the target species was encountered. Habitat characteristics were recorded. Samples were collected from 0-10 m depth by beam trawl and diving.The first fixation of the collected samples with 96% alcohol was made in the field. The individuals were examined under the Leica brand stereomicroscope and species identification was made. In addition, we sequenced the COI from 4 individuals belonging to genus Pilumnus from Black Sea coast of Turkiye. Approximately, 645 bp were amplified from the COI sequences. To identify Pilumnus individuals, the sequences were comparised in GenBank BLAST. Our sequences matched to the Pilumnus spinulosus from Bulgaria with a similarity ratio of mean 99.38%. With this study, the distribution and environmental demands of the P. spinulosus species, which were not previously detected in the Black Sea coasts of Turkiye, were determined.