Matteo Garzia, PhD student, Department of Health, Life & Environmental Sciences, University of L’Aquila, Italy

• (podcast) -> Multilocus DNA barcoding and integrative taxonomy of the oysters (Ostreiade and Gryphaeidae) of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN).

Oysters (families Ostreidae Rafinesque, 1815 and Gryphaeidae Vialov, 1936) play an important role in marine ecosystems and several species are of economic importance. Nevertheless, we still have a limited knowledge on their systematic, diversity, and distribution. The Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) hosts one of the most important oysters’ collection in the world containing a high number of taxa from several oceanographic expeditions in remote oceans of the world. However, more than 90% of the specimens are unidentified at species level because of the difficulties to carry out a morphological determination from shells. This is mainly due to the high degree of phenotypic plasticity of shells driven by environmental factors that doesn’t provide objective diagnostic characters. The main aims of the Synthesys project are to DNA barcode the MNHN collections of oysters to clarify species limits and describe new species, to increase our knowledge of the oyster diversity and to clarify the geographic distribution of the species.