Behavioral responses of freshwater mussels to experimental dewatering

Abstract

The current and future direction of aquatic ecological research leans toward addressing questions that cover multiple scales and levels of complexity. Historically, the ability to do comparative aquatic research across large spatial and temporal scales has been impeded by a lack of comparable measurements, standard methods, and a well organized data management and retrieval system. The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is the first continental-scale ecological observation system designed to collect and provide freely available data on the drivers and responses of ecological change. In this paper, we describe past and present attempts to work across multiple scales in aquatic ecology, and the potential use of NEON aquatics data and infrastructure by researchers to integrate and expand ecological research programs and address novel ecological questions.

Move on or take the heat: Can life history strategies of freshwater mussels predict their physiological and behavioural responses to drought and dewatering?

“…Except for L. bracteata , a high proportion of individuals became stranded regardless of dewatering rate, which is consistent with findings by Galbraith et al. (). Thus, a large proportion of mussel populations can become stranded and experience high levels of mortality downstream of hydropower dams or intense agricultural pumping areas, where water can recede quickly (Newton et al., ; Sethi, Selle, Doyle, Stanley, & Kitchel, ; Spooner, Xenopoulos, Schneider, & Woolnough, ).…”

“…Although burrowing behaviour is thought to vary among species in the wild (Allen & Vaughn, ; Watters, O'Dee, & Chordas, ) and in response to drought conditions (Gough et al., ), our study showed little difference in burrowing behaviour among species, similar to another experimental study on dewatering by Galbraith et al. (), which suggested that this may be caused by the experimental set‐up, not necessarily reflecting natural conditions. We used sand in our experimental set‐up, which has been shown to facilitate burrowing compared to gravel (Hernandez, ), but overall mussels seemed to burrow less in the experimental set‐up compared to field observations in sandy habitat (Z. Mitchell and A. N. Schwalb, unpublished data).…”

“…Our experimental and tank designs were similar to the one used by Galbraith et al. (). A sloping depth was created using purchased sand (median particle diameter D50 = 0.4 mm) where water depth ranges from 10 cm near the inflow of the tank and 50 cm near the outflow of the tank.…”

“…Much of the previous research into the survival adaptations of mussels to dewatering has only focused on one of the two general responses of mussels, behavioural response (i.e., horizontal/vertical movement) (Bartsch et al., ; Gough et al., ; Newton et al., ; Galbraith et al., ; Table ) or physiological tolerance (Bartsch et al., ; Byrne & McMahon, ; Holland, ; Galbraith et al., ; Gough et al., ; Golladay et al., ; Johnson, Liner, Golladay, & Michener, ; Spooner & Vaughn, ; Table ). Gough et al.…”

“…We predict their horizontal mobility to be intermediate between equilibrium and periodic species. In respect to burrowing behaviour, studies have reported that the species with the higher desiccation tolerance tended to burrow deeper than more intolerant species (Galbraith et al., ; Gough et al., ; Newton et al., ). Accordingly, we predict that equilibrium species (with the assumed highest desiccation tolerance) will burrow deeper than periodic or opportunistic species (Table ).…”