Freshwater Mussels

DuPage County Urban Stream Research Center

Freshwater mussels are some of the most important organisms in supporting healthy rivers, but also some of the most threatened, due to extensive alteration to their habitat. Unlike oysters or non-native dreissenid mussels like zebra and quagga mussels, which attach themselves to hard surfaces, native mussels generally belong to the family unionidae, and are predominantly burrowing mussels.

With funding from 11th Hour Racing and Molson-Coors, we have developed submerged habitats that allow us to add diverse types of benthic substrate - which is the limiting factor keeping freshwater mussels from having robust, healthy populations in many stretches of the river. In order to help populate these habitats that we’ve built, we work with the DuPage County Forest Preserve’s Urban Stream Research Center. In the winter, we go out looking for gravid (pregnant) female mussels, and bring them back to the URSC, where they can extract the glochidia, and raise the juveniles in a protected place, escorting them through the most vulnerable part of their life cycles. You can learn more about our mussel reintroduction efforts here.