In 2010, researchers at the University of South Carolina found that the ranges of blue mussels had shifted 350 kilometers north as summer ocean temperatures rose.
Along the southern portion of its range, intertidal populations of M. edulis have experiencedcatastrophic mortality directly associated with summer high temperatures. Over the past 50 years, a geographic contraction of the southern, equatorward range edge of M. edulis has occurred, shifting the range edge approximately 350 km north of the previous limit at Cape Hatteras, NC.
So if warming ocean temperatures are causing mussels to shift 350 km northward, no big deal, right? They can just adapt and ship themselves north.
Not if warming temperatures are not the only thing threatening sea life.
In 2011, additional research indicated that, much like other ocean organisms that depend on calcified structures for survival, ocean acidification makes mussel shells thinner.
A study released this week in Nature showed another way climate change threatens mussels: proteinaceous byssal threads. Essentially, they’re the things that mussels use to anchor themselves to rocks. Byssal threads are non-calcified structures, yet the researchers found that as carbon dioxide levels increased, the byssal threads snapped more easily. It’s a hard life for a mussel when it can’t attach itself to the ocean floor.
The mussels will have a tough time adapting their byssal threads and shells if ocean acidification levels are increasing faster than they did over the last 300 million years. Stronger storms hitting the coastline will only make things harder for mussels.
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