Unionid mussels are recognized as important contributors to healthy aquatic ecosystems, as well as bioindicators of environmental perturbations. Because they are sedentary, filter feeding animals and require hosts (i.e., fishes) to transform embryonic glochidia, mussels are susceptible to direct adverse environmental parameters, and indirect parameters that restrict the timely presence of the h...

Freshwater mussels in California's rivers are potentially very useful as indicators of watershed health and recorders of watershed changes. We report the occurrence and habitat of mussel populations within a continuous 8-km section of the South Fork Eel River in the Northern Coast Range of California. The primary goals of our study were 1) to compile information on species composition and popul...

crude oil is enriched in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (pahs). many pah analogs have proved to potentially damage dna. dna damage can be assessed using various biomarkers to find out the degree of genotoxicity of pollutants following in vitro exposure. in this research the comet assay and micronucleus (mn) test were used to detect dna damages and cytogenetic changes following crude oil expos...

This research represents the first attempt in Italy to develop a cage system for adult freshwater mussel stocking, for extensive farming, that was realized from 2003 to 2005 in NW Italy. Two autochthonous species of Italian freshwater mussel were used: Anodonta anatina and Unio mancus. 5133 mussels were collected and successively stocked in floating cages in 5 different sites in a lake. This st...

The objective of the present study was to determine acute toxicity of copper, ammonia, or chlorine to larval (glochidia) and juvenile mussels using the recently published American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Standard guide for conducting laboratory toxicity tests with freshwater mussels. Toxicity tests were conducted with glochidia (24- to 48-h exposures) and juveniles (96-h exposu...

Freshwater mussels are ecologically and economically important members of many aquatic ecosystems, but are globally among the most imperiled taxa. Propagation techniques for mussels have been developed and used to boost declining and restore extirpated populations. Here we use a cohort of propagated mussels to estimate the intrinsic variability in size and growth rate of Lampsilis siliquoidea (...

One approach to improve forecasts of how global change will affect ecosystem processes is to better understand how anthropogenic disturbances alter bacterial assemblages that drive biogeochemical cycles. Species invasions are important contributors to global change, but their impacts on bacterial community ecology are rarely investigated. Here, we studied direct impacts of invasive dreissenid m...