Mussels an important part of ecosystem

Jim Slater gave a demonstration at the Hunold Heritage Center in Montrose of a button machine Joe Benedict/editordgc@dailygate.com

KEOKUK – John Frederick Boepple had a button business in 1887 in Germany, making buttons out of shells and other items, but that year, Germany made his business unsustainable when they started taxing his raw materials that were being imported.

He came to the United States and eventually made Muscatine the “Pearl Button Capital of the World.” That industry, however, in the late 1800s and early 1900s caused huge losses to the mussels that live in the Mississippi that would see populations decimated for decades.

“They had so many people doing it, they started to run out in 20 years,” Jared McGovern, curator of conservation programs at the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium said.

He was at Bald Eagle Appreciation Days on Saturday at the First Christian Church in Keokuk, presenting “Freshwater Mussels: the Livers of the Rivers.”

He continued with his story about over-harvesting of the animals for their shells to make buttons, saying that by 1911, the industry was already looking for for alternate methods and shipping in shells from other areas.

Boepple went out of business before this time, with McGovern saying he just wasn’t a very good businessman. He started working as a surveyor looking for mussel beds and on one trip cut his foot open. Legend has it, he cut it on a mussel shell, but it really isn’t known if that was just to make the story ironic. At any rate, he got a blood infection and was brought to Muscatine where he died.

These days Iowans aren’t allowed to harvest the mussels, but the simple, filter-feeding creatures still face challenges. Some of thos challenges are being rectified, with old dams being taken out of some streams and rivers where they are no longer needed. Some areas where that has happened have seen the number of different species of mussels increase.

Increasing global temperatures also have been a challenge, as it increases the time pathogens can be around to attack the animals.

The U.S. has a wide variety of species though. McGovern said there’s about 300 identified species in the country, with 47 that have homes in Iowa. But, however, about 70% of species are endangered or threatened.

“Do you know how many are in Spain?...Two,” he said.

So why are these invertebrates so important to protect? As the name of the presentation suggests, they are the “livers of the rivers.” Much like a human liver, the mussels filter things in the water through their feeding process.

An adult muscle can filter up to 15 gallons a day. McGovern showed a video of two aquariums of river water with one having a couple large mussels inside and the other one not having any and showed how the water continued to get clearer over the course of several hours.

McGovern also went over the life cycle of a mussel, in which those watching the presentation got to do an interactive activity. Everyone given a part, with some people eggs, some sperm and others different parts of the mussel. Once eggs were fertilized, some became fish that the larval mussels must attach to to grow enough to become an adult.

Yes, mussels hitch a ride on fish when they are babies, in a complicated process, where the mother mussel creates a lure to bring a fish close to it. Then a sack on the lure breaks, ejecting a ton of larval mussels into the water. Lucky once attach to the fish and become a temporary parasite, until they reach an age where they drop off the fish and start a new bed.

Certain mussels can only use certain fish and some can use “any old fish.”

McGovern’s presentation wasn’t the only mussel-centered activity at this year’s Bald Eagle Appreciation Days. Jim Slater gave a presentation on an antique button-cutting machine, using clam shells at the Hunold Heritage Center in Montrose. Montrose had a button industry as well at one time.

Slater has upgraded the machine to an electric motor, but the pedal-drive with its sprocket, was laying close by. The button machine would cut out the blanks, holes would be drilled and then workers would sew the buttons onto cards to be sold.

SOURCE: https://www.mississippivalleypublishing.com/daily_democrat/mussels-an-important-part-of-ecosystem/article_3d3cd0d9-b986-5575-b7f2-414b2d5b35f4.html