| Beaded cultured pearl farming is a lengthy aquaculture process, particularly when the pearl oysters are produced through a hatchery propagation system, and includes the key steps of artificial breeding, larval and spat rearing before graft operations can take place. Within its genus, Pinctada margaritifera has the ability to produce the widest range of pearl colours, thanks to the donor colour polymorphism of the inner shell, which is mainly responsible for colour transmission. As hatchery spat production in P. margaritifera leads to several colour phenotypes (at 3 months old), the aim of this study was to determine whether a relation exists between the colour of the donors as spat and the final pearl colour. In the experiment, which took place over a... |
