The Yesso scallop (Patinopecten or Mizuhopecten yessoensis), has a wide distribution on the cold coasts of northern Japanese islands, in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, Russian Primorye, Sakhalin, and Kuril Islands. In 1982, M. yessoensis were first introduced into China from Japan as an alternative species for aquaculture in northern China.

There have been several studies carried out on genetic structure and diversity. Chang et al (2007) studied the genetic diversity of cultured and natural populations of Japanese scallops using microsatellites DNA markers. The five populations were from the enhanced fishery at Zhangzi island, the natural population in north sea area of the Yellow Sea, a Japanese cultured population, a Russian population and an albino population collected from Dachangshan island. It was found that the difference in genetic diversity among the five populations was not significant. Han et al 2011 studied the genetic diversity in two-generations of cultured Japanese scallops from Dahao Island (China) and Talian Island (China) and one wild Japanese scallop population and found non-significant differences (in Akroyd et al. 2015).