Mussels Cooking In Their Shells

In the "old normal" world, this time of year would be cold and windy along the Northern California coast, but this year we are seeing the "new normal" - sunny days with temperatures in the 80s.  Sounds nice, unless you are a mussel.

In all her years working at Bodega Bay, the marine reserve research coordinator Jackie Sones had never seen anything like it: scores of dead mussels on the rocks, their shells gaping and scorched, their meats thoroughly cooked. 

A record-breaking June heatwave apparently caused the largest die-off of mussels in at least 15 years at Bodega Head, a small headland on the northern California bay. And Sones received reports from other researchers of similar mass mussel deaths at various beaches across roughly 140 miles of coastline. 

Sones expects the die-off to affect the rest of the seashore ecosystem. “Mussels are known as a foundation species. The equivalent are the trees in a forest – they provide shelter and habitat for a lot of animals, so when you impact that core habitat it ripples throughout the rest of the system,” said Sones.

One more piece of evidence that climate change will have devastating impacts that as they impact foundational species on land and in the oceans.

The University of British Columbia biologist Christopher Harley documented a mussel cook-off at Bodega Head in 2004, but he and Sones believe this one was probably bigger. 

“These events are definitely becoming more frequent, and more severe,” said Harley, citing diminishing mussel beds along the west coast, up to British Columbia. “Mussels are one of the canaries in the coal mine for climate change, only this canary provides food and habitat for hundreds of other species.”