Significance
Male and female mtDNA: a particularity of some bivalve groups (including freshwater) having Doubly Uniparental Inheritance (DUI).
In bivalve species with DUI, mitochondria from the males are transferred from the spermatozoid to the egg during fecundation. Contrary to mtDNA uniparental organisms, where paternal mitochondria are immediately eliminated, in DUI bivalves, males specimens retain their father’s mitochondria in their gonadal tissues, and transmit them to their offspring. This has been originally coined DUI for marine mussels (Zouros, Ball, Saavedra, & Freeman, 1994) and firstly detected in freshwater mussels by Liu, Mitton and Wu (1996). Our eDNA primers also amplify the 16S male mtDNA fragment. Therefore, we often collect both male and  female mtDNA in our samples.