Welcome to the Website of Anna Chase, Student, Researcher, and human being.
 Picture of Anna on a trip to the Selway Wilderness, Idaho.
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What motivates my researchI've always had a fascination with freshwater invertebrates, from frogs to snails to mussels. When I was a kid I would catch them from nearby irrigation ditches, and hold them captive for a few days before returning them where I found them.
Later in life when I wanted to learn more about their place in taxonomy, I started to look for peer reviewed papers on the topic. Imagine my surprise in 2014 when I found out that there aren't very many identification keys or much basic research about freshwater snails or mussels in the Pacific Northwest. Freshwater Mussels are not as flashy as salmonids, but they are important for the health of our streams and rivers. Easily mistaken for rocks, easily suffocated by excessive silt deposition, these hidden gems are in decline worldwide. More and more research is pointing to their important role in nutrient cycling and stream health, and the way that they can store environment data in their shells. |
More beneath the surface
Looking into a stream in the Selway Wilderness of Idaho, you will sometimes spot a salmon coming back to spawn. The story of salmon is one that is often told in dramatic fashion with videos of fish jumping up waterfalls and swimming through a gauntlet of predators. But they aren't the only animals that live here, and they are far from the oldest.
Freshwater mussels live much longer than any salmon. The Western Ridged mussel lives up to 20 years while Western Pearlshell can live to be over 100 years old, making it of particular interest. The growth rings it forms each year can serve to tell its age, much like a tree, and more importantly, their growth rate may be able to tell us about the environment, such as the effects of salmon runs on nutrient availability in streams or how global climate change may affect mussel distributions in the future.
The Western Pearlshell can live wherever the salmon travel, including streams in the scenic Selway Wilderness area, hundreds of miles from the ocean. Their fate is tied to the fate of fish, as their glochidia (larvae) are obligate parasites on young of the year salmon.
Freshwater mussels live much longer than any salmon. The Western Ridged mussel lives up to 20 years while Western Pearlshell can live to be over 100 years old, making it of particular interest. The growth rings it forms each year can serve to tell its age, much like a tree, and more importantly, their growth rate may be able to tell us about the environment, such as the effects of salmon runs on nutrient availability in streams or how global climate change may affect mussel distributions in the future.
The Western Pearlshell can live wherever the salmon travel, including streams in the scenic Selway Wilderness area, hundreds of miles from the ocean. Their fate is tied to the fate of fish, as their glochidia (larvae) are obligate parasites on young of the year salmon.
Additional Freshwater Mollusk Resources
Pacific Northwest Native Freshwater Mussel Workgroup
Freshwater gastropods of North America
Xerces Society
Pacific Northwest Native Freshwater Mussel Workgroup
Freshwater gastropods of North America
Xerces Society
Contact Information
Anna Chase
[email protected]
[email protected]
