The impact of multiple environmental stressors on the euryhaline invasive gastropod myosotella myosotis transcriptomes

Details

Supervisors

Dennis, Alice

Faculty

Faculté des sciences

Degree label

Master [120] en biologie des organismes et écologie, à finalité approfondie

Abstract

enMyosotella myosotis is an invasive, euryhaline pulmonate gastropod which is part of the superfamily Elloboidae. This species is reported to live on coastal habitats in high intertidal and salt marsh halophilous zones, encountering stressful conditions such as salinity fluctuations and magnified temperature changes (Leeuwis & Gamperl, 2022; Pérez-Quintero, 2011). Native to the coast until Bulgaria (Mitov, s. d.), M. myosotis successfully established invasive populations across the globe. To this day, this elloboid as been found in North America (Atlantic coasts, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific coasts), Iraq (Kh Al-Khafaji et al., 2021), and in South Africa (Herbert, 2012). Across these locales, this gastropod encounters a wide range of salinities. At the same time, its native range spans a large latitudinal gradient and include areas that experience harmful conditions such as summer drought. Despite its occurrence across variable conditions and its assumed broad physiological plasticity, M. myosotis remains poorly studied. Thus far, no work has examined the physiological and adaptive mechanisms underlying its tolerance to salinity variation and desiccation stress, limiting our knowledge of the traits that may contribute to its invasive success.