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...

The nitrogen and carbon stable isotope ratios (dN and dC) of the pygmy mussel, Xenostrobus securis, were determined for three estuaries with varying levels of catchment disturbance in northern New South Wales, Australia. The lower Manning River catchment supported the highest human population densities and 3% residential development with some livestock agriculture (41%); the Wallamba River catc...

Reliable estimates of abundance are needed to assess consequences of proposed habitat restoration and enhancement projects on freshwater mussels in the Upper Mississippi River (UMR). Although there is general guidance on sampling techniques for population assessment of freshwater mussels, the actual performance of sampling designs can depend critically on the population density and spatial dist...

Municipal wastewaters are major sources of pollution for the aquatic biota. The purpose of this study was to determine the levels of some pharmaceutical products and the immunotoxic potential of a municipal wastewater aeration lagoon for the treatment of the domestic wastewaters of a small town with wastewater inputs from a 400-bed hospital complex. Endemic mussels were collected, caged and pla...

1. Predictive models of impact are needed for the risk assessment of invasive species. One such species is the Eurasian zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha), a fouling bivalve that overgrows and kills native mussels (Unionidae) in many North American lakes and rivers. The level of mortality in a native mussel population increases with the fouling intensity – i.e. the mean number of zebra mussels...

The kinetic bioconcentration of N-heterocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) after short waterborne exposure was studied. Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), its analogue azaarene 10-azabenzo[a]pyrene (AzaBaP), and their mixture (Mix), were selected to monitor the changes in water concentrations over three days. Decay of both PAHs concentrat...

The contributions of temporal and spatial environmental variation to physiological variation remain poorly resolved. Rocky intertidal zone populations are subjected to thermal variation over the tidal cycle, superimposed with micro-scale variation in individuals' body temperatures. Using the sea mussel (Mytilus californianus), we assessed the consequences of this micro-scale environmental varia...

Mussels are one of the most cultivated and commercialized bivalves worldwide and in southern Chile its culture represent an important economic activity. The species identification within the Mytilus genera, by morphological features, is unreliable, so we used a polymorphism RFLP in the gene encoding the polyphenolic adhesive protein as a species-specific genetic marker to describe Mytilus speci...

The activity of cholinesterase (ChE), glutathione-S transferase (GST), glutathione reductase (GR), glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH) and catalase (CAT) was evaluated in the gill and digestive glands of the Perna perna mussel transplanted to three non-contaminated mariculture zones under the influence of distinct physical-chemical characteristics. Differences among sites for ChE, GST and...