Editorial: Molecular Physiology in Molluscs, Volume II

Physiology applies the basic rules of chemistry, physics, and biology to study the activities of organisms, including the study of the regulation of the synthesis of biomolecules at the molecular level, and the details of providing nutrients to support mitochondrial metabolism at the subcellular level (Carroll, 2007).Molecular physiology focuses on molecules and continues through the interactions of an organism with its environment.Molluscs have played an important role in the history of physiology, and two groups of scientists studying mollusc physiology shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1963and 2000, respectively (Wilbur and Yonge, 1964;Kandel, 2005;Wang and Wang, 2019).Despite these achievements, there is still considerable room for further studies on phenotypic plasticity, toxicology, innate immunity, gene interaction, and molecular transport in molluscs.Fortunately, the application of advanced techniques over the past decade has greatly promoted the progress in molecular physiology of molluscs.Therefore, the Frontiers editorial office had suggested that we further organize and publish the Research Topic of molecular physiology in molluscs in Frontiers in Physiology.Finally, 25 articles were published and summarized in the Molecular Physiology in Molluscs, Volume II in Frontiers in Physiology, which covers a rich and varied range of topics, with an emphasis on the molecular mechanisms of molluscan physiology.Hybridization is an important process of intraspecific and interspecific gene exchange, often accompanied by heterosis or inferiority, as an effective breeding method, and heterosis and phenotypic plasticity are considered basic prerequisites for hybrid breeding (Newkirk and Haley, 1983;Gutierrez, et al., 2018;Meng, et al., 2021).While the molecular basis of heterosis in molluscs remains unclear, Liang et al. deployed interbreeding between two geographic genotypes of Haliotis diversicolor and confirmed the presence of non-additive, dominant, and over-dominant models in the transcriptome and miRNAome, of which facilitate the advantageous integration of the parental alleles into the hybrid, thereby contributing to heterosis.Wang et al. identified growth heterosis of the hybrids and co-dominant expression of color genes in the mantle, revealing the formation and evolution of the mantle color polymorphism of T. crocea.Phenotypic plasticity is an adaptive mechanism involving the ability of organisms to assume different phenotypes without genotype changes (Pfennig, et al., 2010).Species differ in their ability to adapt to the environment, and the plasticity of environmental adaptation is not only related to their own genetics, such as gene plasticity, but may also be closely related to the interaction between intestinal flora and the environment.Huang et al. found that intragenic methylation can regulate growth, development, transduction, and apoptosis in H. discus hannai, offering a new perspective of the epigenetic mechanism underlying phenotypic plasticity in climate change adaptation for marine organisms.Coincidentally, Christopher et al. highlighted that transcriptome plasticity allows highly

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