HR: 08:30h
AN: NB41D-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Sex in the Sand: Patterns and Strategies
AU: * Watters, G T
EM: Watters.1@osu.edu
AF: The Ohio State University, Museum of Biological Diversity 1315 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43212 United States
AB: Research has revealed an unexpected complexity in freshwater mussel reproductive strategies involving methods to ensure that their parasitic larvae encounter the proper fish hosts. Most mussels have evolved means of luring hosts to the mussel or to their larvae. By evolving such lures, mussels increase the chances of the proper host becoming infested. Such specialization entails the loss of the ability to parasitize a wide range of hosts. Mussels having a generalized lure can utilize a broader range of hosts but are inefficient at doing so. These patterns represent tradeoffs between efficiency and host specialization. Mussels also show a variety of strategies involving spawning, parasitization, and juvenile growth. Three patterns are recognized. In the first, spawning takes place in the spring, larvae are parasites in the summer, and juveniles have a short growing season for the first year. In the second, spawning occurs in the autumn, larvae are parasites next spring, and juveniles have a longer growing season than that found in pattern one. Pattern three is similar to pattern two except that larvae are parasites in the winter and juveniles occur in the spring to have the longest growing season. These patterns involve tradeoffs between larval and juvenile mortality.
DE: 9810 New fields (not classifiable under other headings)
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly