It would be a fascinating process even if it wasn’t intended to help clean the Niagara River. Three pregnant native freshwater mussels – named Elizabeth, Imogene and Nelly – have taken up residence in a University at Buffalo biological sciences lab. They are waiting for a complicated birth process that will lead to more mussels and, thus, more hope for a cleaner, healthier river.
In terms of Western New York waterway health, the word “mussel” has had negative connotations for decades. It may be time to think differently. University at Buffalo researchers are trying a strategy intended to help save an endangered species – the freshwater mussel, not to be confused with the invasive zebra or quagga – as well as our polluted waterways.
Buffalo owes these scientists and UB a large vote of thanks for their innovation in using small aquatic creatures to attack problems created by human activity over decades. It is key that local governments act in support by aggressively pursuing their ongoing waterway mitigation efforts.
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The three-year research project is led by UB assistant professors Isabel Porto-Hannes and Corey Krabbenhoft, who have received a $500,000 grant from the New York Power Authority for their pilot study, which explores how these freshwater mussels might be able to help clean even the badly polluted Scajaquada Creek by consuming contaminants like E. coli bacteria.
The animals have shown they can absorb this polluter, which would be a real boon, given that sewer overflows caused by stormwater runoff are the main reason Scajaquada is in the state it is. The animals can also filter nitrogen, which, when present in large quantities from waste or agricultural runoff, is the cause of algal blooms.
Freshwater mussels siphon water – as much as a bathtub’s worth every day – through their gills to feed, acting as living water purifiers. Their presence is vital to the health of freshwater ecosystems. More than 300 species live in North America alone, and individuals from some of them can survive for more than 100 years. Mussels have been called the “livers of rivers,” not just for their filtration capabilities but because they also deposit nutrients on the river bottom, and their burrowing activity mixes and aerates the sediment.
Over the years, though, despite this seeming abundance and longevity, the population of these creatures has declined, due to a variety of factors, including the previous use of their shells for buttons; the damming of rivers, which reduces their mobility; and the attacks of parasitic zebra mussels. In addition, freshwater mussels have a unique reproductive process in which their larvae – tens of thousands of them per mussel – attach harmlessly to host fish and then detach when they are ready to live independently. Unfortunately, some of these host fish are becoming harder to find.
Finally, even mussels, with their ability to filter pollution, can only take so much and some waterways have become simply too befouled to support them. Hopefully, this is not the case with the Niagara River, which has already undergone extensive remediation.
After Elizabeth, Imogene and Nelly have released their offspring and the larvae have dropped off the largemouth bass provided for their maturation period, they will be moved into silos at four restored areas of the Niagara River, where their potential for filtration will be assessed. Projects like this are happening all over the U.S., including at the Chesapeake Bay watershed, so there is good reason to hope that both freshwater mussel population renewal and cleaner waterways will result.
In the meantime, Western New Yorkers can root for the return of the good-guy mussels and draw inspiration from the young scientists who are bringing them back.
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