Alidoostsalimi, Mahsa, Prendergast, Amy, Ulm, Sean, Lambrides, Ariana, Mcniven, Ian, Nguurruumungu Indigenous Corporation, Walmbaar Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC, and UNSPECIFIED (2026) Comparing non-staining methods with Mutvei's solution to visualize growth increments in short-lived intertidal marine gastropod shells. Limnology and Oceanography: Methods. e70031. (In Press)

Preview	PDF (Published Version) - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (2MB) | Preview
Preview	Image (TIFF) (Figure S1) - Supplemental Material Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (302kB) | Preview
Preview	Image (JPEG) (Figure S2) - Supplemental Material Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (13MB) | Preview
Preview	Image (JPEG) (Figure S3) - Supplemental Material Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (16MB) | Preview
Preview	Image (TIFF) (Figure S4) - Supplemental Material Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (724kB) | Preview
Preview	PDF (Table S1) - Supplemental Material Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (110kB) | Preview

Abstract

Mutvei's solution is a widely utilized standard staining method for revealing growth increments in biogenic carbonates; however, it is a slightly toxic, destructive approach with varying success across species groups. Therefore, there has been growing interest in finding non-toxic, less destructive, and straightforward alternative techniques for studying growth structures, primarily focusing on long-lived shells. This research focuses on an intertidal short-lived marine gastropod—Conomurex luhuanus, collected from the Great Barrier Reef and a nearby archaeological site. A comparative analysis of common and cost-effective tools used for growth increment visualization—including transmitted-light microscopy, reflected-light microscopy, cathodoluminescence, Raman spectroscopy, and acetate peel against Mutvei's solution—was undertaken to determine the most effective method to visualize daily growth increments in C. luhuanus. Overall, our results suggested that the relative patterns of measuring growth increments using all techniques are broadly consistent (r = 0.4–0.7, p < 0.05) in the absence of slowed or halted growth. However, transmitted-light microscopy (TML) was the only method that revealed more growth increments in an area where growth lines were too thin to be detected using other techniques, making it impossible to distinguish the daily growth increments using those techniques. Transmitted-light microscopy, without staining or thin-sectioning, was an effective and time-efficient technique for visualizing daily growth increments in C. luhuanus. We suggest that TML can be considered as a preliminary step to investigate growth increments in other species before applying established approaches, such as Mutvei's solution.

Item ID:	90474
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1541-5856
Copyright Information:	© 2026 The Author(s). Limnology and Oceanography: Methods published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Funders:	Australian Research Council (ARC)
Projects and Grants:	ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures (CE230100009), ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CE170100015)
Date Deposited:	09 Feb 2026 04:44
FoR Codes:	43 HISTORY, HERITAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY > 4301 Archaeology > 430101 Archaeological science @ 50% 45 INDIGENOUS STUDIES > 4501 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, language and history > 450101 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander archaeology @ 50%
SEO Codes:	13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1307 Understanding past societies > 130703 Understanding Australia’s past @ 50% 21 INDIGENOUS > 2104 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage and culture > 210402 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander connection to land and environment @ 50%
Downloads:	Total: 1 Last 12 Months: 1
	More Statistics