Marine bivalves are an important component of our global fishery, with over 500 species harvested for food and other uses. Our understanding of their potential vulnerability to extinction lags behind evaluation of freshwater bivalves or marine vertebrates, and so Shan Huang and colleagues, in analyses presented at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, used insights and data from the fossil record to assess extinction risk in this economically and ecologically important group. Their findings suggest that among all today’s shallow-marine bivalves (~6,000 species), harvested species tend to be widespread along major coastlines and are able to tolerate wide ranges of environmental conditions (e.g. sea-surface temperature). This is good news, they note, because the fossil record shows that these broad ranges can help them survive “mild” changes in the environment.
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Source: Phys.org