Recommendations for future work and applications
This study has generated some valuable genetic resources, namely species-specific assays for a range of important species includingMytilus spp. The toolkit could be used in future studies if a HT-qPCR platform is accessible, or individual assays could be used using conventional qPCR instruments. The latter would require some further validation. The overall workflow presented here follows general guidelines for the development of biomonitoring HT-qPCR toolkits, encompassing applications such as monitoring of species of conservation concern, surveillance of harmful or unwanted species (harmful algae or invasive species), and supporting fisheries and aquaculture sectors.
Future work includes the continuous improvement of reference DNA databases For instance, in this study, species of scallop (A. opercularis and P. maximus ) were not successfully barcoded using a general metazoan protocol , highlighting the need for refining barcoding procedures. Besides taxonomic gaps, public repositories such as GenBank are also known to be hampered by errors , hence flagging the need for the establishment of dedicated and curated databases. On the ecological aspect of this study, current developed methodology needs to be implemented in national routine screening programmes, gathering data over time for the different shellfish species, to generate baseline data and understand distribution and spawning activities. In order to achieve this, a better understanding is needed to translate copy numbers into number of larvae of different species, using different genes Eventually this could lead to fast and cost-effective data collection enabling occupancy modelling or larval dispersal modelling while taking into account life history of species (e.g. duration of planktonic stages)