Posted on 12/18/2019 9:03:33 AM PST by Rebelbase
Abingdon - The crystal -clear waters of the Clinch River, which meanders southwest across the Virginia-Tennessee border, look clean and healthy. But a mysterious die-off of freshwater mussels in the river has scientists scrambling to find the cause.
{snip}Since 2016, though, the Clinch River has seen 10 of its 56 species of mussels have gone extinct with another 20 species now considered endangered - like the fluted kidneyshell, snuffbox, birdwing pearly mussel, and the shiny pigtoe.
The pheasantshell mussel, once one of the Clinch’s most abundant mussel species, has plummeted by more than 90 percent, from a population estimated to be 94,000 in 2015 to less than 14,000 today. The rest of the various mussel populations have dropped 30 percent, leaving the Clinch River with the highest concentration of endangered aquatic species on the continent,
Die-off is not an isolated problem
The Clinch River mussel die-off is not an isolated incident. Throughout the U.. and Europe, staggering numbers of freshwater mussels are dying off. There have been attempts to figure out the cause, and everything from infectious diseases and climate change to water pollution has been explored.
(Excerpt) Read more at digitaljournal.com ...
Isn’t there an explanation for scrambling scientists covered somewhere in The Far Side?
Good guess... like with frogs.
“I wish they could find a way to cause Zebra mussels to die off.”
I remember when the Zebra mussels arrived and everyone predicted doom and gloom. The Niagara River went from brown and muddy and stinky to crystal clear and fresh smelling all the way to the bottom of the river bed below.
It’s Roundup! Everything bad is related to that chemical. I saw it on TV!/S
If the water is crystal clear, they may be starving.
Frogs are many species, and their troubles were linked to a problem with skin bacteria, as I recall.
The worst Mass migration was when Mitt moved to Utah and polluted the Senate
“It’s Roundup! Everything bad is related to that chemical. I saw it on TV!/S”
No! It’s birth control pills! No, wait! It’s meth labs or moonshine stills! No, no! It’s cattle and chicken hormones and antibiotics! No! It’s coal mine runoff!! That’s it!
I know! I know! It’s Global Warming!!!
... If the water is crystal clear, they may be starving.
Zebra mussels are in a boom/bust cycle now in the TVA
Nutrients get skeined out, initially with overpopulation,
then mass starvation
Good one!
Not happy about this. Wish they could find what’s causing it and stop it.
Find out what is killing them, then use it on the Zebra mussels and Quagga mussels that are causing havoc in the Great Lakes.
Mussel “larvae” develop in the gills of fish- in other words, they require a host species of fish to propagate.
Sunfish gills are where many mussels are reared before dropping out into the gravel or mud.
They were dumped out in the bilgewater of foreign ships. After that they moved around with the unwitting aide of sloppy boaters.
Zebra mussels may develop differently than the native mussels, and not require a fish gill “nursery” - I don’t know about their development.
If they do require it, they may crowd out the gill dwelling stage of other less prolific mussels.
There used to be a huge industry on the Mississippi that harvested its large mussels to make ‘pearl’ buttons. Fortunately for those mussels, plastics came along and those great big mussels rebounded, at least until zebra mussels.
I think you’re right - but it was a bacteria that only attacked frogs, right?
I am amazed that there are zebra mussels in the TVA lakes, Cherokee as well as Norris.
For those not familiar with the Clinch and Holston rivers in East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, mussels were a major food source for the resident Indians. One way archaeologists locate old villages is by the discovery of the large mussel shell middens. Villages were almost always located on the river and there were and in fact still are (or were) lots of mussels. Some are very large say 5 inches or so long.
The Nature Conservancy purchased tracts of river area for mussel preserves. I wonder how these sort of sanctuaries are faring.
One reason for establishing the sanctuaries at least 20+ years ago was the perceived decline in mussel population.
It was a bacterium that attacked a different bacterium in their skin fauna, I believe. It was a real puzzle to figure out.
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