To nom, or not to nom? That is the snail's question

Thursdays are days when we Three Seas students get an opportunity to learn about marine ecology with the eco-potent Matt Bracken! Today, just like every other day at the MSC was another fun-filled day of learning.

The first part of the morning was spent learning about positive interactions and the species that facilitate other species. Next on the agenda, we discussed the importance of foundation species and how they are fundamentally different from keystone species.

After a short lunch break we helped Matt with his research concerning the grazing preferences of the chubby little littorine so appropriately named Littorina obtusata. We'll monitor their feeding on 6 different algae species over the next four days and hopefully be able to answer this puzzling pregunta: To nom, or not to nom?

The best part of this day was the amount of potential positivity to be discussed. There's something really nice sounding about that term "positive interaction".

Imagine having all of your relationships be beneficial. No negativity, no harm. Everyone is jive and happy as a clam, or a sponge, or even a clown fish (think Nemo and his dad Merlin in their sea anemone). Positive interactions can happen in any environment where two or more species are interacting and where one or more of the species is benefitting from their relationship. One example is the relationship between the ribbed mussel, Geukensia demissa, and the well grounded salt marsh grass Spartina alterniflora. Mussels deposit nitrogen rich excrement onto the basal portion of the plant.

To really understand this concept I needed to put myself into the roots of a young S. alterniflora. I knew of a young sea grass that went by the name Spartina, Tina for short, from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

(Note to self: once you get a marsh plant talking, you can hardly get them to stop. Apparently this is caused by their lack of human interaction since humans tend to gravitate towards refined sandy beaches, neglecting the beauty and power of the salt marsh!)

Here's what Tina had to say about her experience with positive interactions:

I was at first very skeptical about the idea of an invertebrate, a mollusk no less, excreting its nitrogenous waste on my feet. Then, after sitting in my rocky substrate and contemplating life for a while I felt a burst of energy and growth potential. I knew that I was too quick to judge this bearded, filter-feeding, bivalve named G. I realized he wasn't such a bad guy, and that he was actually helping me out. Once I came to this conclusion I figured I'd let him stay and enjoy my beautiful view of the salt marsh. He told me that it wasn't easy living on the Cape. The cobble substratum is no place for a young wandering larva. He told me about how once after a storm, he lost 3,000 members of his aggregation. He was one of few responsible for recolonizing...

I figured since G seemed like such a nice bivalve I would let him and a few hundred of his recruits settle in my basal structures. We may not eat the same way but we sure do live in the same water. In a weird way I'm thankful to the storm for providing me with new friends that will feed me for free! Hey, I'm a girl on a budget after all -- living in the marsh can get expensive.

Tina got me thinking about other positive interactions. I started to wonder if there were other organisms that could provide habitat and important stuff to other organisms. If Tina had that much fun with G, I can only imagine what having hundreds of different invertebrates and alga living in your cracks, crevices, humps, and divots would be like. There are species that let this happen because they benefit immensely from the animals and plants that live in, around, and on their body.

Which brings us to our next topic of discussion, foundation species.

To be continued...