RE: NANFA-- Mussels

Crail, Todd (tcrail_at_northshores.com)
Mon, 2 Sep 2002 11:43:37 -0400

Hi Kahley,

Species become "invasive" because they have few or no predators/disease, or have a reproductive strategy that allows them to gain the upper hand over their competitors for food, ground, sun etc. This goes for native and exotic beings, although it's unusual for native species to suceed at being invasive for too long due to the natural competive-ness that the other organisms evolved along with them. When you take out that sort of "growing up together" item, an organism can just run out of control, such as the case of the Asiatic clams.

If you've positively identified them (please be sure you're certain :), then you can make the choice to become pretty much the sole predator of these organisms. I hear that once bleached and smashed up, they make fine aquarium substrate that even provide a little extra carbonate buffer if you're running hard water systems :)

Hope this helps...
Todd
-----Original Message-----
From: kahley
Sent: Mon 9/2/2002 12:12 PM
To: nanfa_at_aquaria.net
Cc:
Subject: Re: NANFA-- Mussels


At 10:46 AM 9/2/02 -0400, Bruce Stallsmith wrote:
>Kahley, I have a sneaking suspicion that the "mussels" you have found are
>the other exotic species in North America, the Asian Clam, Corbicula
>fluminea. They can be extremely common locally, and get up to about 3.5 cm
>(1.5 in) across in size, usually a medium brown in color. Below is a link
>to a site affiliated with the Univ. of Southern Mississippi that features
>some invasive species. It also includes an excellent Noel Burkhead photo
>of Corbicula:
>
>www.gsmfc.org/nis/nis/Corbicula_fluminea.html


Boy that sure looks like it. Now the quandary...
My tinkering with the environment has attracted an
unnaturally high concentration of fish in a given area.
That many fish need a lot to eat so I want lots of natural fish
food but if this is an invasive species, it doesn't belong
there? Should I kill it? I take great care to not kill the
snails and crayfish in order to breed fish yummies but .......

Thank you for the leads......it's hard to weed through
the tons of googlefodder to find what I need, especially
when I'm starting with such a lack of terminology.


>There are other sites on the web with good information about native
>mussels. Some of these are run by the Illinois Natural History Survey,
>Univ. of Tennessee and Virginia Tech (please, no hokies applause). A
>search in Google on Unionid clams (or Unionidae) will take you to many of
>these sites. Mussel ID is more of an art than a science, I'll warn you.
>Very different species can be very similar in external appearance. I had
>to confront that this summer on a survey project in the Elk River in AL,
>looking for two endangered species. I was convinced I had found the
>Endangered _Quadrula intermedia_, and instead it was the common
>_Cyclonaias tubercula_ which can most easily be distinguished by looking
>at the color of the inside of the shell. The best book I found was
>"Freshwater Mussels of Tennessee", published by the Univ. of Tenn. Press
>(I'm blanking on the two authors!!). They're a fascinating group of
>animals once you learn to look for them and to understand their preferences.
>
>--Bruce Stallsmith
>Huntsville, AL, US of A
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/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
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/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org