SPAWNING AND GLOCHIDIA

ZEBRA MUSSEL INVASION

USFWS DIVER RESCUE

ON DISPLAY

Mussel Anatomy About the Bridge Project What do we have in common? You have two arms, but a freshwater mussel has two shells that The Quad Cities needed a new Mussels close together tightly for protection, with Interstate 74 bridge over the their whole body inside. What else does Mississippi River. A large your body have in common with a mussel? freshwater mussel bed, with on the Move three federally endangered mussel species, is in the construction zone! Freshwater You Mussels This is a Partnership Relocation • Divers collected and relocated more The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Illinois and Iowa • foot than 140,000 freshwater mussels to Departments of Natural Resources worked together and developed • other mussel beds upstream. Scientists • gills a plan to relocate mussels to make way for the new Interstate 74 will study the effects of the relocation • bridge located between Bettendorf, Iowa, and Moline, Illinois. • heart on the mussels. As a result of this cooperation, direct impacts to threatened • and endangered mussel species were avoided and minimized. • siphon Right: Higgins eye pearlymussel Efforts to coordinate this relocation would not have been possible • (Lampsilis higginsii) • hinge without the cooperation of the Illinois and Iowa Departments of • Transportation. More than 140,000 mussels comprised of 32 • stomach species were moved out of the direct impact zone of the new bridge • • shell piers in preparation for construction to begin in the summer of 2017. Make Some Mussel Habitat! Freshwater Mussels SPAWNING AND GLOCHIDIA ZEBRA MUSSEL INVASION 1 Make a river bottom. 2 Add some 3 Who lives USFWS DIVER RESCUE ) Freshwater mussels, or bivalve mollusks, Add some substrate: mud, water! there? Mussels, Potamilus capax have either smooth or rough shells: sand, gravel or cobble. fish, plants? Fat Pocketbook ( ON DISPLAY Smooth shell mussels will most likely live in muddy or sandy areas in streams and lakes, or in slow moving river water.

Rough mussels with bumps or knobs on their shells are usually found in Habitat gravel (rocks the size of marbles) on Freshwater mussels live in different kinds the bottom of streams or rivers with of sediment, or substrate, at the bottom fast moving water. The bumps and of rivers, streams, and lakes. Some knobs help anchor the mussel so they mussels live in clay or muddy sediment; aren’t swept downstream. others live in sand, gravel, or cobble (rocks the size of baseballs). What do you see in the photographs? How are the shells similar or different? The habitat where a group of mussels Mussels are lives is called a “mussel bed.” Food for Monkeyface Mussel ( How would you important because the mussels floats by the bed, including Quadrula metanevra describe the Draw a Mussel! they filter our water ) very small pieces of dead leaves (detritus) and very small shell texture? The shell provides clues about the and help keep organisms like algae, bacteria, and viruses. Mussels suck in mussel's home. Does it live in mud or it clean! sand? Does it live in fast moving water? water (siphon) and pick out food (filter).