Abstract: Hyriopsis cumingii is a major commercially important mussel for freshwater pearl culture in China. In this study, direct sequencing of mitochondrial DNA (mt DNA) 16S rRNA gene region (473 bp) was used to investigate the genetic variability of H. cumingii populations from five lakes in China. For the test individuals, no nucleotide position had gaps or insertions of base pairs, and 32 positions were variable in all the sequences with 473 base pairs. Different H. cumingii populations were indicated by different positions of genetic sequence, which could be used as the genetic markers to identify the populations, and in specific, positions 222(C→G) and 325(A→G) for Poyang Lake population, positions 233(A→G) for Taihu Lake population, positions 40(A→G), 138(A→T), and 294(C→T) for Chaohu Lake population, and position 241(A→C) for Hongze Lake population. A total of 7 haplotypes were identified in the five populations, of which, 3 unique haplotypes (Hap1, Hap2, and Hap4) were to Poyang Lake population. The level of genetic diversity was found higher in Poyang Lake population than in the other populations. Mitochondrial DNA data showed that Poyang Lake population was richer in genetic resources and had higher potentiality in breeding.

Key words: Locusta migratoria manilensis, Behavioral indices, Morphological indices