Surviving global change: a review of the impacts of drought and dewatering on freshwater mussels.

The increase in the frequency and intensity of droughts and heatwaves caused by climate change poses a major threat to biodiversity. In aquatic systems, sedentary species such as freshwater mussels are generally considered more vulnerable to changes in habitat conditions than mobile species such as fish. As mussels provide important ecosystem services, understanding the impacts of drought on freshwater mussels is of particular importance for the management of overall functioning of aquatic ecosystems.

Go with the flow: Impacts of high and low flow conditions on freshwater mussel assemblages and distribution.

Understanding the drivers of distribution and assemblage composition of aquatic organisms is an important aspect of management and conservation, especially in freshwater systems that are inordinately facing increasing anthropogenic pressures and decreasing biodiversity. For stream organisms, habitat conditions during high flows may be impossible to measure in the field, but can be an important factor for their distribution, especially for less mobile organisms like freshwater mussels. Hence, the objective of this study was to use a two dimensional HEC-RAS model to simulate hydraulic conditions during high and baseline flows (flows approx.

Mitochondrial sequence data reveal population structure within .

Unionid mussels are among the most imperiled group of organisms in North America, and is a freshwater species with a relatively wide latitudinal distribution that extends from southern Ontario, Canada, to Texas, USA. Considerable morphological and geographic variation in the genus (formerly ) has led to uncertainty over species boundaries, and recent studies have suggested revisions to species-level classifications by synonymizing , , , and with (currently ). Owing to its wide range and shallow phylogenetic differentiation, we analyzed individuals of using mitochondrial DNA sequence data under a population genetics framework.

Sensitivity of the glochidia (larvae) of freshwater mussels to copper: assessing the effect of water hardness and dissolved organic carbon on the sensitivity of endangered species.

The assessment of the potential impact of waterborne contaminants on imperilled freshwater mussels is needed. Acute copper toxicity was assessed in a standardized soft water (hardness 40-48 mg CaCO(3)equivalents L(-1)) using the larvae (glochidia) from three common and six (Canadian) endangered mussel species. The resulting 24h EC50s ranged from 7 to 36 microg Cu L(-1), with the EC50s of two endangered species <10 microg Cu L(-1).