extant limpet. In addition, bivalves also acquired a novel structure, adducter muscle to close the separated shell plate. Because the two novel structures, the separated shell plate and the adducter muscle appear early embryonic stage, their evolution should be understood as a modification of early development. To understand the evolution of bivalve bodyplan, we have traced the cleavage pattern...

extant limpet. In addition, bivalves also acquired a novel structure, adducter muscle to close the separated shell plate. Because the two novel structures, the separated shell plate and the adducter muscle appear early embryonic stage, their evolution should be understood as a modification of early development. To understand the evolution of bivalve bodyplan, we have traced the cleavage pattern...

extant limpet. In addition, bivalves also acquired a novel structure, adducter muscle to close the separated shell plate. Because the two novel structures, the separated shell plate and the adducter muscle appear early embryonic stage, their evolution should be understood as a modification of early development. To understand the evolution of bivalve bodyplan, we have traced the cleavage pattern...

Mussel beds form important intertidal matrices that provide thermal buffering to associated invertebrate communities, especially under stressful environmental conditions. shells are often colonized by photoautotrophic euendoliths, which have indirect conditional beneficial thermoregulatory effects on both solitary and aggregated mussels increasing the albedo of shell. We investigated whether eu...

Several decades of research have shown that biodiversity affects ecosystem processes associated with resource capture and the production of biomass within trophic levels. Although there are good reasons to expect that biodiversity influences non-trophic ecosystem processes, such as the physical creation or modification of habitat, studies investigating the role of biodiversity on physical proce...

Freeman and Byers (Reports, 11 August 2006, p. 831) presented evidence for the rapid evolution of antipredator defenses in the mussel Mytilus edulis. However, their analysis is confounded by three issues. Samples from some sites are likely to have included a second species, M. trossulus; their manipulation of chemical cues does not preclude other interpretations; and they failed to establish an...

As the climate warms, species that cannot tolerate changing conditions will only persist if they undergo range shifts. Redistribution ability may be particularly variable for benthic marine species that disperse as pelagic larvae in ocean currents. The blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, has recently experienced a warming-related range contraction in the southeastern USA and may face limitations to no...

Aquaculture is growing rapidly in response to an increasing demand for protein and the over-exploitation of wild fisheries. Mussel (family Mytilidae) production has doubled over the last decade and currently stands at 1.5 million tones production per annum. Mussels produce organic biodeposits which are dispersed around the production site and, potentially, impact the receiving environment in a ...

In coastal marine areas, the level of metallothioneins (MTs) is monitored as the specific response to trace heavy metals and is considered as a biomarker of metal exposure. Laboratory experiments with bivalves indicate that MT synthesis is induced by Cd, Cu, Hg, Ag and Zn ions. The results of our study, conducted with the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis, deployed 12 months in the "hot spot" ar...

Several experiments have shown a decrease of growth and calcification of organisms at decreased pH levels but relatively few studies have focused on early life stages which are believed to be more sensitive to environmental disturbances such as hypercapnia. Here, we present experimental data demonstrating that the growth of planktonic mussel 5 (Mytilus edulis) larvae is significantly affected b...