Study on body-color polymorphism of Chlamys nobilis in Beibu gulf

We studied the body-color polymorphism of cultured Chlamys nobilis populations in Liusha Bay, Leizhou Peninsula. The results show that there are 5 954 individuals from 10 different groups of different seed sources whose shell colorscan beclassified into 6 categories orange (62.31%), bordeaux-brown (14.51%), purple-white (12.46%), orange-purple (6.43%), purple-bordeaux-brown (3.46%)and orange-purple-yellow (0.82%). Theadductors of all categories have 2 colors (white and yellow) with significantly more white than yellow, and the highest ratio for yellow adductor is orange (18.79%). Thegonads of mature C.nobilis has 2 colors of yellow (female) and ivory (male). The sex ratio is correlated with the color of adductor. It is revealed that orange is the primary shell color (P0.05) while white is the primary adductor color (P0.05) for C.nobilis; the colors of shell and adductor have certain relationship; individuals with yellow shell color have higher ratio of yellow adductor (P0.05); the ratio of female is significantly higher than male for population with yellow adductor (P0.01).