Dreissena polymorpha (Pallas, 1771)


COMPILED BY: Anastasija Zaiko
CITATION OF THIS ENTRY: Zaiko A. 2009. Dreissena polymorpha. In: Baltic Sea Alien Species Database. S. Olenin, E. Leppakoski and D. Daunys (eds.).
INTERNET: http://www.corpi.ku.lt/nemo/mainnemo.html


TAXONOMY

PhylumMollusca
Class Bivalvia
Order Cardiida
Family Dreissenidae
Genus Dreissena
Species Dreissena polymorpha (Pallas, 1771)
Synonyms Mytilus polymorpha Pallas, 1771
Common names zebra mussel, wandering mussel


Dreissena polymorpha (Photo by Anastasija Zaiko)
Dreissena polymorpha shells (Photo by Anastasija Zaiko)

IDENTIFICATION

The zebra mussel gets its name from the distinctive, striped dark and pale shell colouration, although this is not seen on all specimens, especially older individuals (Minchin et al. 2002). The shell of Dreissena polymorpha has a typical heteromyarian form with great reduction of the anterior territory and great elongation of the opisodentic ligament. Ventrally one or both valves bear the byssal notch. The shell is triangle-shaped from anterior view with flattened ventral surface. There is a sharp shoulder ridge ("carina") located ventro-laterally on each valve. Internally there is a well-marked pallial line with large insertions for the posterior adductor and posterior byssal rectractor and, correspondingly, small insertions for anterior muscles. These are situated on a conspicuous vertical shelf, also called septum, which occupies the umbonal region. The shell is ordinary coloured (Orlova 2002).
Zebra mussel is a byssate epifouling bivalve, attaching by means of proteinaceous byssal threads to any different submerged substrates (Kilgour and Mackie 1993). It occurs usually on hard and mixed bottoms. Zebra mussels are filter feeders having both inhalant and exhalant siphons. They feed by filtering microscopic plankton organisms < 53 µm and organic particles from the water. Primarily, zebra mussels feed on algae and suspended detritus, and eventually – tiny free-floating zooplankton organisms might be captured (Mikheev 1994; Olenin et al. 1999). Higher filtration activity of D. polymorpha population coincides with the location of higher biomasses. Maximum grazing rates can reach 234 ml h -1 ind-1 (Kryger and Riisgård 1998), the lowest values reported were around 0,1 l h -1 ind-1 (Kotta et al. 1998).

INTRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION

  • First record from the Baltic Sea (year, area, reference):

Year ­ 1800s
Area - Vistula and Curonian Lagoons
Reference - Olenin et al. 1999

  • Established:

in the entire Baltic Sea ­ in the lagoons and inlets
in the area of primary introduction ­ Yes

  • Origin of the species:

The native range of the zebra mussel includes Danube, Dniestr, Berezan, Southern Bug, Dniepr, Molochnaya, Don, Kuban, Kamchia, and Veleca river basins; isolated and semi-isolated relic estuarian reservoirs along the Bulgarian, Romanian, Ukrainian, and Russian Black and Azov seas coasts (Son 2007).

  • General characteristics:

Salinity range.While normally considered as freshwater species, the zebra mussels can adapt and inhabit brackish areas (Claudi and Mackie 1993). However its expansion to more saline waters (> 2-4 PSU) is restricted by salinity tolerance of larval stages. Similar to other brackish water euryhaline bivalves, the European zebra mussel is capable of hyperosmotic regulation in range from freshwater to 2 PSU. In experiments with step-by-step increase of salinity, the adults tolerated salinity up to 12-15 PSU (Orlova 2002).
Temperature. The species is considered as low boreal by its origin (Starobogatov 1994) and thus can inhabit accessible waters in temperate climatic zones. Temperature of 0oC is the lower and 30-32oC the higher limit for adult survival. Upper limit for cells is 40-42oC. 12oC is the lower limit for recruitment. (Orlova 2002).
Tolerance to pollution. They are capable of tolerating a certain degree of pollution, although absent in heavily polluted waters. When exposed to acute, adverse conditions, the animal will close its shell and remain closed up to 2 weeks before reopening (Claudi and Mackie 1993).
Preferable substrate. The zebra mussels occurs usually on hard and mixed bottoms. On soft and silty bottoms it can also overgrow empty shells and live molluscs of the same and other species, as well as pieces and debries of other hard substrata (Orlova 2002).
Vulnarable (invasible) habitats. The mussels are met from the upper littoral down to tens of meters if ice abrasion is absent. Its maximal depth of occurrence registered in European waters is 60 m (Grim 1971). Maximum abundance is at 1-5 m depth. As a rule, lakes occupied by Dreissena are mesotrophic with relatively high pH (7.4-8.5), moderate alkalinity (30-50 mg l-1 CaCO3), and moderate amounts of dissolved mineral salts in the water (optimal conductivity >110 µmhos cm-1) (Lyakhnovich et al. 1994; Orlova 2002).
Reproduction.The zebra mussel produces veliger larvae which remain within the plankton for some weeks and become concentrated by wind and water currents in embayments along rivers or in lakes producing high settling numbers. Mortalities during their free-living stage and metamorphosis are high and they may perish when carried downstream in rivers or estuaries (Minchin et al. 2002). The zebra mussel in Europe is characterized by annual reproduction, except for the most northern populations. The species is an r-strategist; female zebra mussels can spawn more than a million eggs, and males up to nearly 10 billion sperm, each contributing to more than 30 percent of their body weight prior to spawning (Sprung 1991). Temperature and salinity are the most important environmental abiotic factors limiting the recruitment and development of D. polymorpha. The spawning period lasts from the late spring to the early autumn if the temperature is above 12oC (Orlova 2002).

THE ROLE IN THE BALTIC SEA ECOSYSTEM

Competition for food and/or space. The most of the waterbodies invaded by zebra mussel have native freshwater filter feeders belonging to the family Unionidae. Unionids may be affected by zebra mussels by competition for food as well as by fouling (Strayer and Smith 1996). Unionids are an important substrate for Dreissena attachment. Anywhere from 10 to 90 % of a zebra mussel population can be attached to living unionids (Gollach and Leppäkoski 1999). The overgrowth of unionids by zebra mussels can cause a dramatic decrease in the density of unionids. A ratio of the biomass of attached Dreissena and the host unionid > 2 usually resulted in unionid mortality. The extensive overgrowth by Dreissena of unionids, resulting in mass mortality, is characteristic of periods of rapid population growth of zebra mussels when they invade a new waterbody. Subsequent to this period, Dreissena population densities decline, and they co-exist with native bivalves (Burlakova et al. 1999).
Habitat change.Zebra mussel is acknowledged by many authors as a powerful ecosystem engineer species in the most aquatic ecosystems it has invaded. It alters habitats in both autogenic and allogenic way (sensu Jones et al. 1994), modifying the morphological and physical properties of sediments, extensively filtering suspended material and thereby affecting the availability of resources in ecosystem. Zebra mussel clumps (druses) are capable of increasing the colonisable benthic surface area, providing the enemy- or stress-free space, controlling the transport of particles and solutes in the near-bottom environment, altering boundary layer characteristics, increasing the amount of organic material in the sediment by depositing feces and pseudofeces, increasing water clarity via removing inorganic particulates and plankton from the water column, increasing dissolved nutrients concentrations via excretion or removing seston from the water column. In addition, water flow induced by zebra mussel filtering activity enhances oxygenation of the benthic habitat. The later three impacts can be classified as allogenic and are subsistent only to live mussels, whereas the others (autogenic) might be induced by spent shells as well (Zaiko et al. 2009 and references therein).
Transfer of parasites. Zebra mussel is known to be a host of 34 parasites and commensals. At lest some of these are host specific and several of these invade new habitats with Dreissena (Karatayev et al. 1999).
Grazing. Changes in the biomass of benthic bivalves can cause dramatic changes in total grazing pressure in aquatic systems, but few studies document ecosystem-level impacts of these changes. There is some studies documenting a massive decline in phytoplankton biomass concurrent with the invasion of the zebra mussel, and demonstrating that the zebra mussel actually caused this decline (Caraco et al. 1997). Dreissena grazing has complex direct and indirect effects on lower food web organism such as bacteria and phagotrophic protists that are known to play the pivotal role in nitrogen cycling in pelagic systems. By suppressing micrograzers and excreting dissolved organic carbon and inorganic nutrients, zebra mussels can promote heterotrophic bacterial production. At the same time, mussels can effectively filter larger bacterial cells (> 0.9 mm). Combined with grazing by some protozoan species that are adapted to avoid mussel predation (e.g., via association with cyanobacteria), they may significantly reduce populations of large-sized bacteria. Relatively large and slow-growing nitrifying bacteria, that normally would oxidize ammonium to nitrate, could be particularly vulnerable to increased grazing pressure (Lavrentyev et al. 1996).
Community dominance . Once introduced, the population of zebra mussel can grow rapidly, and the total biomass can exceed 10 times that of all other native benthic invertebrates. The zebra mussel is frequently competitively dominant over native benthic fauna, and can impact all components of the freshwater ecosystem, especially benthic animals (Karatayev et al. 2002 and references therein).
Benthic-pelagic interaction . Zebra mussels are functionally different than most benthic invertebrates in freshwater. Although they have large impacts on the structure and function of the benthos, they also have a large direct impact on the planktonic community. Via filtering large volumes of water and transporting the removed material to the bottom, they provide a direct link between processes in the plankton and those in the benthos. Therefore, zebra mussels, differently from the other aquatic invaders, are capable of unifying the remote parts of the freshwater ecosystem and inducing system wide effects (Karatayev et al. 2002).
Bioaccumulation. D. polymorpha may influence contaminant cycling by bioconcentrating high levels of hydrophobic contaminants in its tissue (Bruner et al. 1994). The studies of relationships between some organochlorines and metals in the water and in the zebra mussel showed, that bioconcentration of PCBs and some havy metals (like Pb, Cu and Cr) by the mussel may be rather significant. However, when pollution reaches top values, the mussel metabolic activities are affected and thus, the bioconcentration ability too (Chevreuil et al. 1996).

LIKELY IMPACT ON USES/RESOURCES AND HUMAN HEALTH

Aquatic transport . Navigational and recreational boating is affected by increased drag due to attached mussels. Larger numbers of leisure craft are now removed from the water each winter for cleaning of hulls and for antifouling applications to reduce levels of hull fouling (WGTMO 2001).
Fishing. Fishing gear is being fouled if left in the water for long periods.
Tourism. Crepidula clumps may change the recreational environment (Minchin 1999).
Human health. The occurrence of zebra mussels in shallow areas where bathing occurs has resulted in an increase in foot lacerations with possible consequences of infection from a number of freshwater organisms that may include Leptospira that causes Weil’s disease (WGTMO 2001).
Water abstractions. Small mussels can get into engine cooling systems causing overheating and damage. There are few accounts of economic impacts on industry although some private water abstractions have had difficulties (WGTMO 2001).
Water Quality. Dreissena invasion have influence on water chemistry and increases water transparency, decreases seston concentration, and affects total phosphates, nitrogen, and total mineralization. The proliferation of aquatic macrophytes associated with zebra mussel colonies (Karatayev et al. 1999; Claudi and Leach 2000).

REFERENCES

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  2. Burlakova L E, Karatayev AY and Padilla D K (1999) The impact of Dreissena polymorpha (Pallas) invasion on Unionids. In: 16th Baltic Marine Biologists Symposium. Klaipeda University, Coastal Research and Planning Institute, 48 p.
  3. Caraco NF, Cole JJ, Raymond PA, Strayer DL, Pace ML, Findlay SEG and Fischer DT (1997). Zebra Mussel Invasion in a Large, Turbid River: Phytoplankton Response to Increased Grazing. Ecology 78(2): 588-602
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