Zach Siegrist Email: zcsiegrist@gmail.com Biology Department Western Washington University Mail Stop 9160 Bellingham, WA 98225-9160

Project: Temperature and Salinity Tolerances of Three Local Clams

I intend to study temperature and salinity tolerances of three Pacific Northwest clams: Nuttallia obscurata, Venerupis philippinarum and Protothaca staminea.  N. obscurata, or the purple varnish clam, is a non-native species that has spread rapidly in the coastal Pacific Northwest.  Attempts at commercial marketing have largely failed.  This is in contrast to V. phillipinarum, the Manila clam, which was introduced to the region in the 1930s but is now very important to commercial shellfish industry.  Finally, P. staminea is our local littleneck clam, and is also commercially and ecologically important.  To study the physiological tolerances of these three species, I will collect wild samples from multiple sites and conduct controlled experiments while altering temperature and salinity levels.  Examining gill ciliary tolerance acts as an effective correlate to whole organism tolerance; time to ciliary death will be evaluated for each species under different conditions.  Multiple two-way ANOVAs will be used to analyze the data.  Results should indicate differences in temperature and salinity tolerances between N. obscurata, V. philippinarum and P. staminea, which may offer valuable insight as to why N. obscurata is so successful as an invasive species.

My research is supported by a grant from WWU's Research and Sponsored Programs.