The most threatened group of animals on Earth – what is happening to freshwater bivalves?

A recent article published in Conservation Biology, entitled “Distribution, scale, and drivers of mass mortality events in Europe’s freshwater bivalves”, reveals the scale of mass die-offs of freshwater bivalves across Europe. The study was conducted within a COST Action project CONFREMU and involved numerous Polish scientists among the co-authors, including  Dr Maria Urbańska from the Laboratory of Animal Ecology.

The results indicate that the main threats include drought, pollution, and the transformation of rivers and lakes, but they also draw attention to diseases of freshwater bivalves, which remain very poorly understood. This work represents an important step towards better identification of threats and more effective, active conservation of this most endangered group of animals on Earth, and thus towards the protection of inland water ecosystems.

If you notice large numbers of dead freshwater bivalves in the water, you can still report such observations to us — every record helps us better understand the scale of the problem.