News tagged with mussel
Are invasives bad? Not always, researchers say
In 1988, a mysterious invader washed upon the New Jersey shore. The Asian shore crab likely arrived in ballast from commercial ships, and it found its new home to be quite agreeable. More than two decades ...
May 17, 2010 |
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Mussel adhesive for DNA chips
Mussels are true masters of adhesion. Whether on the wood of a pier, the metal of a ship’s hull, rocks, or to their own kind, they stick to everything. Researchers led by Philip B. Messersmith at Northwestern ...
Dec 24, 2010 |
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Alien lionfish swarm N.C. coast
A handful of ravenous, venomous lionfish, a species native to the western Pacific, were spotted off North Carolina in 2000. Turns out they like it here. A lot.
Apr 23, 2009 |
4.3 / 5 (8) |
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Round Goby invade Great Lakes
Canadian scientists uncover alarming invasion of round goby into Great Lakes tributaries: impact on endangered fishes likely to be serious.
Aug 11, 2009 |
3.7 / 5 (9) |
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Invisible invasive species
While Asian carp, gypsy moths and zebra mussels hog invasive-species headlines, many invisible invaders are altering ecosystems and flourishing outside of the limelight.
Dec 07, 2010 |
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Wind farm in North Sea has positive net impact on fauna
A North-Sea wind farm has hardly any negative effects on fauna. At most, a few bird species will avoid such a wind farm. It turns out that a wind farm also provides a new natural habitat for organisms living ...
Technology / Energy & Green Tech
Aug 08, 2011 |
5 / 5 (6) |
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Too hot to handle: Impacts of climate change on mussels
Climate change is causing higher air and water temperatures along the east coast of the United States. These changes have shrunk the geographic region where blue mussels are able to survive, according to findings by University ...
Aug 16, 2010 |
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Scientists find new invasive fresh water clam species in Lake George
(PhysOrg.com) -- The new species (Corbicula fluminea) was located in the Village of Lake George and poses a serious threat to native mussels and the Lake George ecosystem, according to Sandra Nierzwicki-Bauer, direct ...
Aug 30, 2010 |
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Researchers study 'fundamental, amazing change' in Great Lakes (w/ Video)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Great Lakes are in the midst of a remarkable ecological transformation, driven largely by the blitzkrieg advance of two closely related species of non-native mussels.
Jul 16, 2009 |
5 / 5 (5) |
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Chemical-munching mussels contaminating Great Lakes
Zebra mussels from the Caspian Sea, introduced to North America by accident, are becoming a veritable plague releasing toxic chemicals into the Great Lakes, Canadian biologists say.
Oct 01, 2011 |
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Shellfish and inkjet printers may hold key to faster healing from surgeries
Using the natural glue that marine mussels use to stick to rocks, and a variation on the inkjet printer, a team of researchers led by North Carolina State University has devised a new way of making medical adhesives that ...
Mar 18, 2009 |
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Invasive mussels causing massive ecological changes in Great Lakes
The ongoing spread of non-native mussels in the Great Lakes has caused "massive, ecosystem-wide changes" throughout lakes Michigan and Huron, two of the planet's largest freshwater lakes, according to a new ...
Apr 13, 2011 |
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15,000 reasons to worry about invasive species
A day at the beach in Wisconsin's North Woods didn't used to go like this. Candy Dailey spent a Fourth of July holiday splashing with grandkids on the sandy shore of Lake Metonga when she felt a nasty sting on her foot.
Nov 09, 2009 |
5 / 5 (4) |
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Researchers Reveal That Environmentally Devastating Zebra Mussels Can Be Controlled
Cloaked in a delicate brown and cream striped shell and measuring a mere inch in length, the zebra mussel certainly doesn’t look ominous. This tiny invasive species, however, has wreaked havoc in waterways ...
Dec 14, 2009 |
3.3 / 5 (6) |
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Are all alien encounters bad?
The pages of ecological history are filled with woeful tales of destruction from non-native species -- organisms that originated elsewhere.
Aug 30, 2011 |
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Mussel
The common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalvia mollusca, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.
The word "mussel" is most frequently used to mean the edible bivalves of the marine family Mytilidae, most of which live on exposed shores in the intertidal zone, attached by means of their strong byssal threads ("beard") to a firm substrate. A few species (in the genus Bathymodiolus) have colonised hydrothermal vents associated with deep ocean ridges.
In most marine mussels the shell is longer than it is wide, being wedge-shaped or asymmetrical. The external colour of the shell is often dark blue, blackish, or brown, while the interior is silvery and somewhat nacreous.
The word "mussel" is also used for many freshwater bivalves, including the freshwater pearl mussels. Freshwater mussel species inhabit lakes, ponds, rivers, creeks, canals, grouped in a different subclass, despite some very superficial similarities in appearance.
Freshwater Zebra mussels and their relatives in the family Dreissenidae are not related to previously mentioned groups, even though they resemble many Mytilus species in shape, and live attached to rocks and other hard surfaces in a similar manner, using a byssus. They are classified with the Heterodonta, the taxonomic group which includes most of the bivalves commonly referred to as "clams".
For more information about Mussel, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
