Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Thursday 19 december 2019
Scientists seeking cause of huge freshwater mussel die-off

By TRAVIS LOLLER Associ- — and recently he's been
ated Press busy.
KYLES FORD, Tenn. (AP) "Along with invasive spe-
— On a recent late fall af- cies, we're seeing invasive
ternoon at Kyles Ford, the pathogens," Goldberg
white branches of syca- said. "Often it's the coup de
more trees overhung the grace for a species that is
banks of the Clinch River, holding on by a thread."
leaves slowly turning yel- Disease is a big part of the
low. Green walnuts cov- global extinction crisis, he
ered the ground. The shal- said. For example, white
low water ran fast and cold nose syndrome was first
over the rocky bottom, but discovered in a single New
it was littered with the white York cave in 2007 and has
shells of dead mussels. since killed millions of bats,
Freshwater mussels range and chytrid fungus is re-
from about the size of a sponsible for the demise of
large button to the size tree frogs and about 200
of a billfold, but the work other amphibian species
they do for ecosystems is worldwide.
enormous. They can filter But Goldberg is hopeful the
around 8-10 gallons of river freshwater mussel team,
water each day, cleaning which includes scientists
it of algae, silt and even In this Oct. 17, 2019, photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a pile of recently dead from the U.S. Geological
heavy metals and making freshwater mussels are piled along the shore of the Clinch River near Wallen Bend, Tenn. Survey and a nonprofit
Associated Press
the whole river a better en- conservation group, will be
vironment for fish, amphib- ia border. Richard slogged and climate change, yet "All living things are chock- able to find the cause of
ians, plants and bugs. Mus- through thigh-deep water the current decline looks to full of microorganisms, and the mussel die-offs and a
sels also benefit the people in search of pheasantshell be something different. we don't have any sort of way to stop them.
who use their rivers as a mussels, until recently one Richard and a team of map for what is healthy in- "I see it as a race against
source of drinking water. of the most abundant spe- scientists suspect an infec- side a mussel," Richard said. time, not an impossible
That's why scientists are cies on the river. He spots tious disease. By compar- University of Wisconsin epi- task," Goldberg said. "We're
working quickly to discov- them easily although to the ing healthy pheasantshell demiologist Tony Goldberg all motivated by the sinking
er the cause of a massive untrained eye, they aren't mussels with dying ones, is helping with the investi- realization that if we lose
mussel die-off on the Clinch so obvious. Mussels bury the team is narrowing gation. these mussels, the rivers we
and understand whether it themselves in the riverbed, down a list of suspected He specializes in wildlife dis- all love are never going to
is related to similar die-offs digging in with their single pathogens. eases of unknown cause be the same."q
on at least five U.S. rivers foot and leaving only a
and another in Spain. crescent of their shells vis- U.S. permits sale of cigarettes
The Clinch River, winding ible.
300 miles through Appala- In 2016, Richard noticed
chia, is home to 133 spe- the pheasantshells were with 95% less nicotine
cies of fish and is one of the dying in large numbers —
most important rivers for the population dropping Nicotine, which occurs naturally in tobac-
freshwater mussels in the from 94,000 in 2016 to less co plants, is the addictive chemical that
world, with 46 different spe- than 14,000 this year on makes cigarettes, chew and related prod-
cies — more than in all of a 200-meter (219-yard) ucts so hard to quit. Past efforts to sell simi-
Europe. stretch. He estimates hun- lar low-nicotine products have fallen flat.
"I always try to get people dreds of thousands, pos- Regulators stressed that their ruling does
to call this area a temper- sibly millions, have died in not mean the new products are safer than
ate Amazon, because the the larger river. regular cigarettes. The agency noted
biodiversity here really is off Richard found reports of there are no safe tobacco products. Cig-
the charts," biologist Jor- similar die-offs over the arettes cause cancer, lung disease, stroke
dan Richard, with the U.S. years in rivers around the and a number of other deadly diseases.
Fish and Wildlife Service, world, but he didn't find This Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019 photo shows a But the agency's tobacco chief, Mitch
said recently as he stood many answers. group of cigarettes in New York. Zeller, noted in a statement that 22nd
in waders, surveying the Over the past century, mus- Associated Press Century Group's products are the first
mussel population at Kyles sel populations everywhere cigarettes to show the potential "to help
Ford, a rural community of have declined steeply due By MATTHEW PERRONE reduce nicotine dependence among ad-
around 525 near the Virgin- to pollution, habitat loss AP Health Writer dicted smokers." The U.S. smoking rate has
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials fallen to an all-time low of 14% of adults, or
on Tuesday endorsed a type of cigarette roughly 34 million Americans. But smoking
that could help ease the addictive grip remains the leading cause of preventable
of smoking by delivering very low levels of disease and death in the U.S., responsible
nicotine. for some 480,000 deaths annually
The Food and Drug Administration will al- Low-nicotine cigarettes are not a new
low 22nd Century Group to begin selling idea. Philip Morris experimented with sell-
the first low-nicotine cigarettes reviewed ing a line of them in the U.S. in the late
by federal health regulators. The products 1980s, without much success. Since then,
contain roughly 95% less nicotine than most low-nicotine cigarettes have been
standard cigarettes, according to the used for research purposes to study addic-
FDA. tion in smokers.q