Environmental influence on Rapana venosa shell morphotypes and phenotypes from the Romanian Black Sea Coast

Abstract

Rapana venosa (Valenciennes, 1846) is a muricid gastropod originating from the Sea of Japan and occurring in abundance into the Black Sea. The aim of the present paper is to report differences displayed by the shell of rapana in terms of aspect in tight connection with seawater pollution and marine benthic substrates. For this purpose, whole individuals were collected from three representative sites of the Romanian Black Sea Coast. Morphological and phenotypical characteristics were registered for each shell. Furthermore, a chemical analysis of shell composition was performed with an inductively coupled plasma spectrometer in order to identify composition differences among sampling areas.