Valve gape behaviour of mussels (Mytilus edulis) exposed to dispersed crude oil as an environmental monitoring endpoint.

Environmental monitoring requires cost-effective and efficient methods for detecting potential effects of pollution, and valve gape behaviour has been used with this purpose for a range of contaminants in freshwater and marine bivalves. The current study investigated the use of a new method for measuring valve behaviour responses in mussels (Mytilus edulis) exposed to dispersed crude oil (DCO). Results confirmed that valve gape is a sensitive parameter; at the high DCO concentration (0.

Effect of dispersed crude oil on the feeding activity, retention efficiency, and filtration rate of differently sized blue mussels (Mytilus edulis).

The use of physiological response endpoints in environmental monitoring represents an opportunity to provide an integrated picture of health status and ecological fitness of individuals, and may provide an indication of potential longer term effects on aquatic organisms in the environment. The feeding behavior response sensitivity of blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) of differing size to dispersed crude oil (DCO) was investigated in a lab exposure experiment. The ability of mussels to recover following a single exposure was also investigated, as well as the response to consecutive exposures, in order to assess the utility of employing the same individuals in chronic environmental monitoring.