This study investigated purplish Washington clam, Saxidomus purpuratus on its gonadal development, reproductive cycle and shell length (age) at 50% female group maturity from January to December 2011 in Jinhae Bay, Korea. This species is dioecious. The gonad index (GI) began to increase in January, reached the maximum value in May and to decrease in June, reached the minimum value in September then to increase slowly in October again. The reproductive cycle of the clams can be divided into five successive stages: the early active stage (Ea, from February to March), the late active stage (La, from January to March and October to December), the ripe stage (R, from January to May), the spawning stage (S, from June to December) and the degenerative and inactive stage (Ia, from January to February and November to December). The spawning periods were from June to December and the main spawning periods were from July to October. The shell length at 50% female group maturity (SL50) was estimated to be 63.6 mm, which can be converted as sexual maturity age of 2.2 year.

Genomic DNA samples isolated from geographical purplish Washington clam (Saxidomus purpuratus) were obtained from three different regions in the Korean Peninsula: Geoje (Geoje population; GJP), Gunsan (Gunsan population; GSP) and a site of North Korea (North Korea population; NKP). The seven primers generated the total 369 loci that can be scored from the GSP clam population. 356 fragments were generated from the NKP clam population. The complexity of the banding patterns varies dramatically between the primers and three localities. In this study, 319 loci were identified in the purplish Washington clam from Geoje and 369 in the clam population from Gunsan: 221 specific loci (69.3%) in the GJP clam population and 300 (81.3%) in the GSP population. These results demonstrate that the primer detected a large quantity of specific fragments, suggesting that the genetic variation in the GSP is higher than in the GJP population. In particular, the BION-28 primer gave DNA profiles with more fragments than the other six primers in the NKP population. The oligonucleotides primer BION-75 produced 21 unique loci to each population, which were ascertaining each population, approximately 250 bp, 300 bp and 400 bp, in the GJP population. Outstandingly, the primer BION-50 detected 21 shared loci by the three populations, major and/or minor fragments of sizes 150 bp, which were matching in all samples. With regard to average bandsharing value (BS) results, individuals from GJP population (0.743) displayed higher bandsharing values than did individuals from GSP population (0.606). In the present study, the dendrogram gained by the seven oligonucleotides primers indicates three genetic clusters: cluster 1 (GEOJE 01 ~ GEOJE 07), cluster 2 (GUNSAN 08 ~ GUNSAN 14), cluster 3 (N.KOREA 15 ~ N.KOREA 21). Among the twenty one clams, the shortest genetic distance that revealed significant molecular differences was between individuals 08 and 09 from the NKP population (genetic distance = 0.073), while the longest genetic distance among the twenty-one individuals that demonstrated significant molecular differences was between individuals GEOJE no. 03 and GUNSAN no. 09 (genetic distance = 0.669). Comparatively, individuals of GJP population were properly closely related to that of NKP population, as revealed in the hierarchical dendrogram of genetic distances. In due course, PCR analysis has revealed the significant genetic distance among three purplish Washington clam populations. PCR fragments discovered in this study could be valuable as a DNA marker of the three geographical clam populations to distinguish.