Clamsplaining

Weird Clam Profile: Pinna nobilis, the giant fan mussel

A fan mussel among the seagrass it calls home (Arnaud Abadie on Flickr)

The fan mussels (Pinna nobilis) are a species of enormous mussel which live in seagrass beds of the Mediterranean Sea. They can grow to nearly 4 feet long (though most are 1-2 feet in size at maturity), and live with most of their bodies protruding straight up out of the sediment, anchored down into the sand with long…

Killer Clams: if you're a copepod, watch out.

Some shells of the carnivorous genus Cardiomya. Notice the protuberance off one side, making space for the overdeveloped siphon they use to capture prey (Machado et al. 2016)

You might think of clams as rather pacifistic creatures. Most of them are; the majority of bivalves are filter-feeding organisms that suck in immense amounts of seawater and eat the yummy stuff being carried by the currents.…

Weird Clam Profile: Hammer Oysters

Malleus malleus from Indonesia. Source: Wikipedia

Oyster. Reading that word, you probably formed an image in your mind of a rough-shelled creature with a shiny mother-of-pearl (nacreous) inside that someone pulled out of some silt in an estuary. And yes, that’s what most oyster’s look like. Some oysters are of additional economic value through their creation of pearls. These pearl oysters have…

The boring giant clam is anything but.

Tridacna crocea, bored into a coral head on a reef in Palau

There are many types of giant clam. Not all of them are giant; the boring giant clam, Tridacna crocea, only grows to 10 cm long or so. The boring giant clam is not so named because it’s dull; its main skill is its ability to bore into the coral of its coral reef home and live with its entire shell and body embedded in the living coral.…

Weird Clam Profile: The Heart Cockles

Corculum cardissa (from Wikipedia)

The heart cockle (Corculum cardissa) is so named because of its heart shaped shell shape. It is native to warm equatorial waters of the Indo-Pacific. While many bivalves sit with the their ventral valve facing down, the heart cockle sits on its side, with one side of both valves facing downward. the valves have adapted to resemble wings and are flat on the bottom

Oh, the seasons they grow! First thesis chapter published. [research blog]

My latest clamuscript is published in Palaios, coauthored with my advisor Matthew Clapham! It’s the first chapter of my PhD thesis, and it’s titled “Identifying the Ticks of Bivalve Shell Clocks: Seasonal Growth in Relation to Temperature and Food Supply.” I thought I’d write a quick post describing why I tackled this project, what I did, what I found out, and what I think it means! Raw…

When a clam gets an offer it can’t refuse

Tridacna maxima in Eilat, Israel

I study the giant clams, bivalves which can grow over three feet long and and are willingly “infected” by a symbiotic algae which they house in an altered stomach cavity. They provide their algae partners with nitrogen, a stable environment and even funnel light in their direction, and the algae happily share the fruit of their labor in the form of sugars. Imagine…

Lessons of the Condors

Condor 606 was born in Big Sur and regularly flies back and forth between there and Pinnacles.

Visiting Pinnacles National Park the other day, we were lucky to spot California condors several times. Their wingspan can reach up to 3 m. Their graceful flight is a sight to behold as they ride the warm updrafts of between the pinnacles of rock in the park, with their secondary feathers bending up…

The insidious costs of increased class sizes: A TA's perspective (open letter)

UC Santa Cruz, like all UC schools, is in the midst of a massive regent-mandated effort to increase enrollment. In the face of a governor hostile to the idea of investing in education (despite his prior promises), the regents have decided that we are going to grow our way out of the budget shortfall. Much has been said about the foolishness of this plan from the standpoint of housing, student tui…

Behold, my new favorite creature

Porcellanopagurus nihonkaiensis wearing a bivalve shell (Source)

Some of you may be aware that I harbor great affection for hermit crabs. I own terrestrial Caribbean hermits. Your mental image of hermits may feature a wardrobe of gastropod (snail) shells, which are by far the most common mollusk contractor they use to construct their homes, but as I’ve discussed, they actually have great…

Too much is riding on Student Housing West to allow NIMBYism to destroy it.

It was hard not to feel irritated as I opened the homepage of East Meadow Action, a grassroots group recently formed to defeat the development of Student Housing West (SHW), particularly regarding the Family Student Housing project on East Campus. The group has its heart in the right place. They believe that the field at the base of campus is a setting deserving of preservation, and are trying…

Some clams are bloodsucking parasites. And it's a remarkable achievement!

Lampsilis showing off its convincing fish-like lure. Photo: Chris Barnhart, Missouri State.

Clams are traditionally the victims of the aquatic realm. With some exceptions, clams are generally not predatory in nature, preferring to passively filter feed. When they are attacked, their defenses center around their protective shell, or swimming away, or just living in a place that is difficult for…

Snails in salt marshes along the East Coast of North America are accomplished fungus farmers.

Littoraria grazing on Spartina marsh grass. (source)

Us humans really like to talk up our skills at farming. And while it’s true that we have domesticated animals and plants to a degree not seen in other life forms, the act of nurturing and harvesting food is actually not really that special, and is broadly observed throughout the animal kingdom. Perhaps the most iconic invertebrate farmers are…

Why funding science makes America stronger

As a PhD candidate in the last year of my doctorate, I’m currently applying for postdoctoral positions, and running into a lot of difficulty because the fellowships that were previously available are on ice (NOAA, EPA), dead (USGS Mendenhall), or are so selective and prohibitive in their application requirements that they are effectively a lottery (NSF). These fellowships are would support my…

What is Conservation Paleobiology?

In undergrad, I felt like my school and internship were training me to be two different types of researcher. At USC, I was majoring in Environmental Studies with an emphasis in Biology. It was essentially two majors in one, with a year of biology, a year of chemistry, a year of organic chem, a year of physics, molecular biology, biochemistry, etc. On top of that, I took courses on international…

Hard shells aren’t actually that hard to make (yet)

One of the Antarctic bivalve species featured in this study. Source

Like all organisms, bivalves have a limited budget governing all aspects of their metabolism. If they put more energy into feeding (filtering the water), they can bring in a bit more food and therefore fuel more growth, but sucking in water takes energy as well, particularly if there isn’t enough food to be filtered out. Bivalves…