"New findings suggest a previously unknown virus may play a role in the sudden death of many freshwater mussels in recent years."

"Freshwater mussels suffer from reputational issues.

To start, they’re living rocks, faceless and mostly motionless. When all is well, they hide out of view, tightly shut and burrowed into river beds, doing the ecological heavy-lifting of filtering water, storing nutrients and anchoring freshwater food webs. And when they’re in trouble, mussels aren’t particularly charismatic poster children for ecological strife.

But this could be the year that freshwater mussels get the attention that Jordan Richard, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the University of Wisconsin, believes they’re owed.

After years of searching for a potential explanation for the mysterious and massive die-offs that have suddenly killed thousands of mussels in streams from Washington to Virginia, Mr. Richard and his colleagues have finally identified a potential “mussel-bola” culprit."

Marion Renault reports for the New York Times September 22, 2020. [2]