Freshwater mussel community response to warm water discharge in western Lake Erie

Native unionid mussels are endangered in the Laurentian Great Lakes due to habitat degradation and biofouling by invasive dreissenids. However, a robust community was discovered living within the thermal discharge of a power plant at Oregon, Ohio, on the south shore of Lake Erie. Our study compared this community to nearby communities outside the thermal plume, and examined habitat characteristics that may affect unionids. Unionids were sampled from the exposed lake bed at three sites during a seiche in 2011: (1) within the thermal plume, (2) at Bayshore Park (2.0 km east of the plant), and (3) at the University of Toledo's Lake Erie Center (4.0 km east). In 2010, sediment samples were collected along a 2 km transect extending east from the plant discharge roughly parallel to the south shore of Lake Erie. Results indicated that the community within the thermal plume had higher densities, higher diversity (H′), more small individuals but overall larger sizes than communities outside the plume. Both the rate and intensity of fouling by dreissenids were lower within the plume. Dry mass of coarse surface sediment and sediment organic matter content were negatively related to distance from the plant (R2 = 0.497, and 0.479, respectively). An unexpected discovery was that the bulk of the coarse sediment was comprised of shell material from Asian clams and dreissenid mussels, suggesting a contribution of these exotic species to sediment accumulation. In total, our results suggest that several habitat characteristics close to the power plant are favorable to unionids.