IntroductionMaterials & MethodsChemicalsGreen mussel collection and preparation of tissue homogenatesGreen mussel tissue extraction and human cell-based bioassayPOPs and heavy metal analysisData analysisResultsEndocrine activities of the mussel samplesBiological parameters and contaminant levels in green musselsStatistical analysisDiscussionSe...

It has recently been hypothesized that intertidal mussel beds and seaweed canopies in the Gulf of Maine are alternate community stable states or disturbance patch mosaics dominated by either seaweed or mussel communities. The community that occurs in a given site is proposed to be stochastic and dependent on the size of the original disturbance and subsequent recruit availability. Large disturb...

Recent emphasis in the National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, International, related to the availability of bedding in rodent cages raises regulatory and accreditation issues in the toxicology-laboratory setting. This article reviews the results of a recent survey of 12 Unite...

Two field experiments were carried out to investigate the effects of mussels (Mytilus edulis) on fauna and on sediment characteristics. In the first experiment mussels were removed from within an established mussel bed to create bare patches and in the second experiment mussels were transplanted to an adjacent bare sandflat. In the mussel removal experiment, mobile epibenthic crustaceans (predo...

Feeding behavior of the invasive bivalve Limnoperna fortunei in the presence of single-celled, colonial, and filamentous cyanobacteria was tested in laboratory experiments to evaluate the effects of size and shape on mussel feeding. The first hypothesis holds that golden mussel filters more efficiently smaller particles, such as single cells of Microcystis, which could be more easily assimilate...

Increasing evidence shows that spatial interactions between sedentary organisms can structure communities and promote landscape complexity in many ecosystems. Here we tested the hypothesis that reef-forming mussels (Mytilus edulis L.), a dominant intertidal ecosystem engineer in the Wadden Sea, promote abundances of the burrowing bivalve Cerastoderma edule L. (cockle) in neighboring habitats at...

The influence of 3-methylcholanthrene to zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) larvae was studied. The artificial spawning of zebra mussels was used for obtaining larvae. Two different concentrations of 3-methylcholanthrene were used. The chromosome analysis showed a significant increase in chromosome aberrations (CA) at the higher concentration of the compound. The resistance of zebra mussel lar...

this research represents the first attempt in italy to develop a cage system for adult freshwater mussel stocking, for extensive farming, that was realized from 2003 to 2005 in nw italy. two autochthonous species of italian freshwater mussel were used: anodonta anatina and unio mancus. 5133 mussels were collected and successively stocked in floating cages in 5 different sites in a lake. this st...

The random Lorentz gas (RLG) is a minimal model of transport in heterogeneous media that exhibits continuous localization transition controlled by void space percolation. RLG also provides toy particle caging, which known to be relevant for describing the discontinuous dynamical glasses. In order clarify interplay between seemingly incompatible percolation and caging descriptions RLG, we consid...