Abiotic impacts on spatial and temporal distribution of Corbicula fluminea (Müller, 1774) in the River Minho estuary, Portugal

Abstract

ABSTRACT1. The non-indigenous species Corbicula fluminea (Mu¨ller, 1774) is one of the most invasive bivalves in freshwater ecosystems. This Asian clam was first reported in the River Minho estuary in 1989. After a short period of time, it became the major component of the local benthic fauna in terms of abundance and biomass.2. In the autumn of 2004 and 2005, spatial and temporal variations in abundance, biomass and population structure of C. fluminea were investigated at 16 sites in the freshwater subtidal area of the River Minho estuary. Mean abundance and biomass per site ranged from 80 to 4185 ind. m À2 and 8.5 to 465.9 g AFDW m À2 , respectively. 3. The environmental characterization of the area was performed through multivariate analysis, which revealed three distinct areas subjected to different abiotic conditions. C. fluminea population structure is well correlated with these three distinct areas.4. The combination of several abiotic variables determining C. fluminea biomass distribution was evaluated through a stepwise multiple regression. This model showed that redox potential, nutrient concentrations, hardness, organic matter and sediment characteristics explained almost 60% of the variation in C. fluminea biomass in the freshwater subtidal area of the River Minho estuary (R 2 ¼ 59:3%; F ½9;86 ¼ 13:9; p50.001). 5. Improved ecological knowledge is essential for future C. fluminea management, in order to protect local habitats and biodiversity, and to reduce the economic impact of this non-indigenous invasive species.

Spatial and temporal variation in biomass and size structure of Corbicula fluminea in Danube River catchment, Hungary

“…The coarse and very fine sediment fractions, the high water temperature and the low benthic organic matter content in very fine fraction of sediment provided suitable habitat for C. fluminea and resulted in high biomass values. These results are in accordance with previous studies, which demonstrated that C. fluminea reached its maximum abundance at sites with coarse and find sand, or small gravel sized substrate (McMahon 1983;Belanger et al 1991;Bagatini et al 2007;Sousa et al 2008c).…”

Massive die-offs of freshwater bivalves as resource pulses

“…Applying such findings to our results it was also possible that the higher river flows during 2009/2010 resulted in higher mortalities, negatively affecting bivalve populations and possibly imposing a serious threat to some species. C. fluminea, has a typical opportunistic life cycle (Sousa et al, 2008b(Sousa et al, , 2008d giving this species an advantage over the four native species concerning extreme climatic events, since it recovers more rapidly (Sousa et al, 2008a(Sousa et al, , 2008cIlarri et al, 2011). Extreme events are predicted to increase over the next few decades as a result of climate change.…”

Ecology of the invasive Asian clam Corbicula fluminea (Müller, 1774) in aquatic ecosystems: an overview

“…Tolerate low water temperatures and prefer sandier sediments mixed with silt and clay (which enhance the organic matter content). However, in some ecosystems this species can be found in all types of sediments (with or without submerged vegetation) (Sousa et al 2008) (6) sediments. At the same time, there is growing evidence that bivalves also excrete large amounts of inorganic nutrients, mainly inorganic nitrogen, at the form of faeces and pseudofaeces (Asmus & Asmus 1991).…”

“…This occurrence can abruptly cause massive mortalities in all the benthic fauna, also affecting the water quality. Usually, the C. fluminea population rapidly recovers reaching previous abundance and distribution while native species usually take a long time to react (Sousa et al 2007b(Sousa et al , 2008. Therefore, this phenomenon could act in favour of C. fluminea and against native species, and may determine and/or accelerate the extirpation of some native species.…”

“…For example, the zebra mussel D. polymorpha has been frequently used to assess potential environmental impacts in freshwater ecosystems. C. fluminea seems to be a very interesting species from an ecotoxicological point of view because it has some appealing characteristics that could justified its use in this kind of studies, namely: i) this species has become a major component of benthic communities in several lotic and lentic habitats in different regions of the world and, thus, it has a wide spatial distribution; ii) it may be found in both pristine and polluted environments iii) nowadays presents a very strong invasive dynamics in rivers, channels and lakes where it reaches very high abundance (Phelps 1994, Sousa et al 2008; iv) this bivalve is easily maintained in the laboratory for several months and may be transplanted into field conditions using caging procedures (Cataldo et al 2001a); v) this species has a great filtration capacity allowing the uptake of large amounts of pollutants, vi) several field studies have shown that C. fluminea is a good bioindicator of heavy metals or other contaminants (Doherty 1990, Inza et al 1997, Cataldo et al 2001b and vii) the size of adults makes possible the dissection and separation of the main organs allowing specific analysis. The combination of all these traits and its ability to bioaccumulate and bioamplify several contaminants make C. fluminea a very convenient model in ecotoxicology (Way et al 1990, Bassack et al 1997, Baudrimont et al 1997aand b, 2003, Inza et al 1997, Narbonne et al 1999, Tran et al 2001, Cataldo et al 2001aand b, Achard et al 2004).…”