[1] It is well known that skeletal remains of carbonate secreting organisms can provide a wealth of information about past environments. Sr/Ca ratios have been successfully used as a temperature proxy in corals and sclerosponges. Previous work on aragonitic bivalve shells has not been conclusive but suggests a major control of growth rate on Sr/Ca ratios. As many studies have used bivalve growth rates to determine temperature, we tested if Sr/Ca ratios could predict temperature through its relationship with growth rate. Shells from the two species of clams from the same family (veneroidea) studied here, Saxidomus giganteus and Mercenaria mercenaria, show vastly different seasonal Sr/Ca profiles. A strong relationship between average annual Sr/Ca ratios and annual growth rate was found in S. giganteus shells from both Washington (R 2 = 0.87) and Alaska (R 2 = 0.64), USA, but not in M. mercenaria shells from North Carolina, USA. Furthermore, the Sr/Ca-growth rate relationship was also evident upon a more detailed inspection of subannual growth rates in S. giganteus (R 2 = 0.73). Although there were significant positive correlations between Sr/Ca ratios and temperature in S. giganteus shells, the correlations were weak (0.09 < R 2 < 0.27), and thus Sr/Ca ratios cannot be used as a reliable temperature proxy in these species of aragonitic bivalves. It is clear from this study that Sr/Ca ratios are not under thermodynamic control in either clam species, since thermodynamics predict a negative correlation between Sr/Ca ratios and temperature in aragonite. This points toward dominance of biological processes in the regulation of Sr 2+ . This is also reflected by the largely differing Sr/Ca partition coefficients (D Sr ) in these shells (D Sr % 0.25), when compared to inorganic, coral, and sclerosponge studies (D Sr % 1), all of which show a negative dependence of Sr/Ca on temperature. We suggest that caution be taken when using Sr/Ca in any biogenic aragonite as a temperature proxy when the D Sr greatly deviates from one, as this indicates the dominance of biological controls on Sr/Ca ratios.

We examined ␦ 13 C values of shallow and deep-water scallop shells as well as ␦ 13 C of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) from the Bay of Brest in western Brittany. Time series of shell calcite ␦ 13 C do not reflect seasonal variation in seawater ␦ 13 C, but rather show a consistent pattern of decreasing ␦ 13 C with age, suggesting a metabolic effect rather than direct environmental control. This ␦ 13 C trend reflects an increasing contribution of metabolic CO 2 to skeletal carbonate throughout ontogeny, although this respired CO 2 does not seem to be the major source of skeletal carbon (contribution of only 10% over the first year of life). We propose a model of this effect that depends on the availability of metabolic carbon relative to the carbon requirements for calcification. A ratio of "respired to precipitated carbon" is calculated, and represents the amount of metabolic carbon available for calcification. Interestingly, this ratio increases throughout ontogeny suggesting a real increase of metabolic carbon utilization into the skeleton relative to carbon from seawater DIC. This ratio allows us to separate two different populations of Pecten maximus of different water depth. It is therefore suggested that shell ␦ 13 C might be used to track differences in the metabolic activity of scallops from different populations.