Effects of suspended inorganic matter on filtration and grazing rates of the invasive mussel Limnoperna fortunei (Bivalvia: Mytiloidea).

ROMINA TOKUMON; DANIEL CATALDO; DEMETRIO BOLTOVSKOY

JOURNAL OF MOLLUSCAN STUDIES

OXFORD UNIV PRESS

Año: 2015 vol. 2015 p. 1 - 4

0260-1230

The Asian mytiloid Limnoperna fortunei (Dunker, 1857) was first recorded in South America along the coast of the Rı´ o de la Plata estuary in 1991 (Pastorino et al., 1993). Since then the mussel has expanded its range, colonizing most of the Rı´ o de la Plata basin, as well as several minor watersheds. Because of its wide distribution, high densities and significant ecosystem engineering capabilities, L. fortunei has had sizeable impacts on the waterbodies colonized, including modification of nutrient concentrations and ratios, enhancement of water transparency, macrophyte growth and effects on cyanobacterial blooms, the abundance and diversity of benthic invertebrates, sedimentation rates and food availability for fishes (Sylvester, Boltovskoy & Cataldo, 2007; Boltovskoy et al., 2009, 2013; Cataldo et al., 2012a, b; Boltovskoy & Correa, 2015; Paolucci & Thuesen, 2015). Impacts on human activities have been especially marked: L. fortunei larvae enter raw water conduits of open cooling systems and develop large beds in pipes and other components, clogging them and causing pressure loss, overheating and corrosion (Boltovskoy, Xu & Nakano, 2015). Northward expansion of L. fortunei is expected to continue beyond South America and into Central and North America (Karatayev et al., 2015). Available data indicate that potentially colonizable areas include all continents except Antarctica (Kluza & McNyset, 2005; Karatayev et al., 2015), but the fact that water bodies lacking mussels exist in watersheds where L. fortunei has been present for decades suggests that some environmental conditions may limit the expansion of this invader (Darrigran et al., 2011). Among these, the concentration of suspended solids is of particular interest. Suspended matter can affect respiration, growth, parasite infestation and reproduction of the organisms (Robinson, Wehling & Morse, 1984; Alexander, Thorp & Fell, 1994; Rosewarne et al., 2013), thereby restricting their geographic spread, but this constraint has not been explicitly addressed in models of the potential distribution of L. fortunei (