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)