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dantheclamman

@dantheclamman@scicomm.xyz

Environmental scientist and eclamgelist at San Francisco Estuary Institute.

Provider of #ClamFacts

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dantheclamman , to random
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Many bivalves can hear! Pearl oysters, for example, are sensitive to sounds between 10 and 1000 Hz, with the low end unfortunately aligning well with the sounds of ship engine noise, drilling and other noise pollution. Researchers found a group of oysters subjected to such noise abandoned their usual behavior of bunching together (common in many bivalves) and closed their valves more frequently and more tightly. Other studies showed this reduced bivalves' ability to feed and grow!

a few of a cluster of pearl oysters, Pinctada radiata, in a natural setting. below is an experimental setup with the left showing a group of control oysters in a quiet lab, staying arranged side to side like they often do in the wild, while the treatment oysters to the right were exposed to loud noise and are chaotically spaced out and distributed.
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    dantheclamman , to random
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    Bivalves lack a central nervous system, but they have complex behaviors, because they live in dynamic environments. Scallops, for example, have eyes, which they use to navigate when swimming, identify predators, and make sense of their environment. Researchers found that presenting stimuli to scallops, they reached out to objects they saw to make sense of them with their feeling tentacles. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2021.1730

    dantheclamman , to random
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    Pondering the immortality of the clam

    loren , to random
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    that’ll paddle, fish

    dantheclamman ,
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    @loren best post, gar none.

    dantheclamman , to random
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    So let me get this straight.
    We call it the Arctic because a constellation called the Great Bear (which really doesn't look much like a bear) points in that direction. There also happen to be bears up there.
    Meanwhile, we have another pole, but we just call it "Opposite of bear", and there are no bears down there.

    dantheclamman OP ,
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    @babe this is a very good point. there are actually water bears in Antarctica. so the name is not accurate and imo the continent should be renamed Tardigradica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acutuncus

    dantheclamman , to random
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    Many life forms attack my garden, but nothing comes close to the destructive ability of slugs. They can eat plants whole over the course of days. It's remarkable. The only mercy is that they will soon be aestivating until next rainy season

    loren , (edited ) to random
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    Edit: physical stickers are sold out, digital stickers and wallpapers are still available.

    The nuthatch stickers are finally here! They are 3.91” x 2.31” glossy UV protected waterproof vinyl stickers and you can get them over on my ko-fi shop! I also put up a digital version of the sticker as a transparent PNG for use as an emoji or messaging sticker or desktop icon or whatever else you can think of! And if that all isn’t enough I have also listed the full image as a 16x9 phone wallpaper for download as well!

    Please let me know if you plan to buy more than say 4 stickers as that may change the shipping a bit especially if you are not in the US.

    I am very happy with how these turned out so please let me know if there are any other pictures of mine that you’d like to see as stickers!

    Nuthatch sticker: https://ko-fi.com/s/33675fd31a

    Digital sticker: https://ko-fi.com/s/562277ac67

    Phone wallpaper: https://ko-fi.com/s/9760982c9b

    Ko-fi shop: https://ko-fi.com/loren_nature/shop

    dantheclamman ,
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    @loren omg I would go so hard for a fridge magnet

    dantheclamman ,
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    @loren I would make it move down the fridge and do silly nuthatch sounds

    dantheclamman , to random
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    No one has ever asked me, "How are clams so good, Dan? How do they do it?" And that's ok, because I have no answer to that question

    dantheclamman , to random
    @dantheclamman@scicomm.xyz avatar

    Shipworms are cellulose-eating bivalves famous for boring into wood, leading to their nickname "the clams that sunk a thousand ships". TIL they also loved to eat early trans-oceanic cables, which were often wrapped in hemp, tree rubber or other plant-based materials. The problem was only solved when a protective metal tape was developed! https://atlantic-cable.com/Article/Clifford/teredo.htm

    dantheclamman OP ,
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    @llewelly shipworms have been around since at least the Cretaceous and potentially the Jurassic. and other invertebrate groups have likely been eating driftwood since it first appeared! it's a rich nutrient source that is surprisingly important to marine food webs https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pala.12376

    dantheclamman OP ,
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    @llewelly it is thought that before wood boring evolved, logs would have had a much longer life floating in the sea, and evidence of all sorts of rafting organisms have been found from that interval. The shipworms make quick work of such logs these days! https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/566844v2.full.pdf

    dantheclamman , to random
    @dantheclamman@scicomm.xyz avatar

    Sauron had a lot of problems, but he knew how to manage a wetland. The Dead Marshes were one of the environmental gems of Mordor, and an impressive nature-based solution to help remediate the environmental damage caused by the corpse issue after the Battle of Dagorlad

    dantheclamman , to random
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    Some of the weirdest clams to have ever lived: Shikamaia, extinct giant bivalves over a meter long, shaped like a cross between a surfboard and a giant slipper. They lived during the Permian, over 260 million years ago. It has been hypothesized that they rafted on the bottom of shallow, stagnant lagoons, partnering with photosynthetic algae to harvest sunlight for food, like living solar panels.

    dantheclamman OP ,
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    @futurebird the shell was on its side, and the valves sat lengthwise like a pair of scissors. The modern heart cockles rest on the side like this, but not as elongated of a shell. Some heart cockles have windows to allow in light to symbionts, but Shikamaia's shell was too thick for that. The researchers propose that if it was photosymbiotic, it extended its mantle over the edges of the shell, like giant clams do. However, we will need better preserved shells to look for geochemical evidence!

    dantheclamman , to random
    @dantheclamman@scicomm.xyz avatar

    Clams have a tough life. Many predators. Food supply is often limiting and can be toxic. The environment is unpredictable and often not ideal. But on the other hand, they've never had to answer an email.

    dantheclamman , to random
    @dantheclamman@scicomm.xyz avatar

    The new federal budget would cut the Integrated Ocean Observing System by 75%, depriving us of crucial eyes on the ground with regard to climate change, hurricane prediction, harmful algae mitigation and other important environmental challenges. This war on science must be stopped.

    https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/02/climate/ocean-program-biden-budget-cut?cid=ios_app

    dantheclamman , to random
    @dantheclamman@scicomm.xyz avatar

    I really love clams. The clam facts are just accumulating at a nonlinear rate. I want to write a book about them.

    dantheclamman , to random
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    IMPORTANT NON-STRESSFUL LEGISLATIVE NEWS
    A bill has been introduced to declare the banana slug the official state slug of CA. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1850

    A very bright yellow banana slug, glistening in the sun and browsing some wood chips

    dantheclamman , to random
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    As any houseplant owner knows, so much of a plant's success comes down to how the roots are doing. In botany, researchers are increasingly looking to the oft-overlooked roots to answer questions about plant evolution and physiology, in a discipline semi-jokingly called "shovelomics".

    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/these-researchers-are-digging-into-the-understudied-science-of-roots-180983884/

    dantheclamman , to random
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    Much as carnivory in plants has evolved to help them live in nutrient-starved environments, carnivorous clams have evolved to suck up much larger prey than their filter-feeding ancestors could deal with, allowing them to live in deep, food-scarce environments. The tiny Trigonulina ornata lives off the Brazilian coast from depths from 20-850m and specializes in vacuuming up crustaceans called ostracods. It even sticks debris to its shell to camouflage itself, like a hunting blind!

    a picture of an ~5 mm long T. ornata clam, which has a strongly ridged, white shell, with little bits of sandy debris attached all over the shell

    dantheclamman , to random
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    The rain is clobbering us in CA, but the mosses are living their best lives right now. This kind was so vivid green, with bursts of sparks flying out! What kind of moss is this, ? Some sort of screw-moss like Tortula sp.? Found on a neglected backyard shed roof in Vacaville, CA

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