Population Dynamics of Marine Bivalves in Changing Environments

Marine bivalves occupy a vital niche in coastal ecosystems, acting as ecosystem engineers through their roles in filtration, nutrient cycling and habitat structuring. Alterations in temperature regimes, ocean chemistry and hydrodynamic disturbances can modulate fundamental demographic processes—recruitment, growth, mortality and dispersal—that underpin population dynamics. Climate warming has shifted species distributions, often favouring warm‐tolerant taxa while driving declines at the warm edge of cold‐adapted species. Concurrently, increased storm intensity and sea-level rise enhance sediment transport and substrate instability, directly affecting burrowing and survival. Eutrophication and coastal acidification can degrade habitat quality by altering sediment biogeochemistry, reducing calcification rates and impairing early life stages. Long-term monitoring across multiple spatial scales reveals both synchronous and species-specific trends, influenced by large-scale oceanographic oscillations and local factors such as predator pressure and substrate composition. Restoration initiatives, including the establishment of spawner sanctuaries and sediment buffering strategies, demonstrate potential pathways to reverse declines, enhance larval retention and deliver cascading benefits for seagrass recovery and water quality. An integrated understanding of these drivers is essential to inform adaptive management and maintain the ecological and economic services provided by bivalve assemblages.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have quantified the vulnerability of clam habitats to extreme storm events by integrating hydrodynamic modelling with a loss‐probability function that links shell length and seabed alteration to mortality risk. These findings pinpoint erosion hotspots along wave shoaling zones and demonstrate how surge‐driven shifts in damage belts threaten benthic community resilience. In parallel, field enrichment experiments along eutrophication gradients have shown that biogenic calcium carbonate additions can buffer acidification in coastal sediments. While macrofaunal diversity declined under organic loading, calcium carbonate amendments significantly mitigated losses in primary productivity and maintained nutrient cycling, indicating a practical intervention to uphold benthic function in acidifying coasts.

Population Dynamics of Marine Bivalves in Changing Environments publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in population dynamics of marine bivalves in changing environments across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Recruitment: The addition of new individuals to a population, usually through larval settlement and survival to a defined size or life stage.

Benthic: Relating to the bottom of a body of water; often refers to organisms living on or in the seabed.

Eutrophication: The enrichment of water bodies with nutrients, leading to increased primary production and potential ecosystem imbalance.

Ocean acidification: The reduction in seawater pH and carbonate saturation due to uptake of atmospheric CO₂, affecting calcifying organisms.

Larval retention: The process by which offspring remain within or return to their natal area, enhancing local population replenishment.

References

1. Intertidal clams exhibit population synchrony across spatial and temporal scales. Limnology and Oceanography (2018).
2. Vulnerability assessment of nearshore clam habitat subject to storm waves and surge. Scientific Reports (2021).
3. Rebuilding A Collapsed Bivalve Population, Restoring Seagrass Meadows, and Eradicating Harmful Algal Blooms In A Temperate Lagoon Using Spawner Sanctuaries. Frontiers in Marine Science (2022).
4. Calcium carbonate alters the functional response of coastal sediments to eutrophication-induced acidification. Scientific Reports (2019).
5. Climate warming leads to replacement of Limecola balthica by Abra tenuis on high tidal flats of the Wadden Sea. Journal of Sea Research (2021).
6. Small-Scale and Long-Term Variability in Population Dynamics of the Cockle Cerastoderma edule in a Southern North Sea Tidal Flat System. Frontiers in Marine Science (2021).