Many mussel species depend on specific species of fish to serve as hosts for mussel larvae, or glochidia. |
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While encysted, the glochidia will metamorphose, allowing the organs to develop more like an adult's organs. |
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Zygotes develop within the mantle cavity and glochidia larvae are released in the early summer. |
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Unionid embryos spend the first stage of development in the marsupial portion of the female unionid's gills, where they develop into glochidia, the parasitic stage. |
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The mussel fauna, past, present, and future, of Sulfur Fork Creek and lower Red River, Tennessee, and laboratory transformation of glochidia. |
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The glochidia temporarily attach to fish, allowing mussels to distribute themselves upstream and downstream and among watersheds. |
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At mussel refuges, the risk to introduce pathogens is compounded by the need for host fishes for glochidia transformation. |
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Many unionoid species produce conglutinates, worm-like structures filled with glochidia, that resemble one of the foods in the host fish's diet. |
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In eating the conglutinate, the fish becomes infected with glochidia. |
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Weather conditions prevented data collection in the spring and, therefore, no conclusions could be drawn about the relationship between aggregation and glochidia release. |
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Glochidia were once believed to be parasites on the gills of the parents. |
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