Lady of Elms

Yes, mussels are important in cleaning waterways, both in fresh and salt water. I found a video demonstrating how they filter clean their habitats. The biggest problem they face right now is water pollution and habitat destruction.

Hello! Um....I love trees and I hug them regularly. I love birds just as much, but they don't let me hug them. I'm a life-long learner and I've been crazy about nature ever since I was a little girl. And that immediately led to a love of science. I've attended a few universities for biology and environ. sci., but never got that degree, mostly because even though I'm approaching middle age, I still have no idea what I really want to do with myself! I thought I wanted to go into teaching, but the pandemic made me nope out of that program. So I'm here to talk all things science with y'all. I'm a lone nerd out here.

I've got some background in environmental sciences, and the very first thing you need to "green" anything is water retention and stable substrate. Shifting ground and water evaporation will greatly impede and plants trying to grow in an area. An oasis is a place where there is a large collection of protected water thanks to local geological structures. They're usually natural springs or wells from the water table below the desert sand. Plants require a place to root and annually reliable soil. Simply watering the sand isn't going to be enough. Wind erosion is also a major hurdle for plants. Some can withstand flat, open lands with full sun and arid temperatures, but not the kind that will create a forest. The Dust Bowl in the United States was a good example of this. Rich soil is created by lots of organic matter. The best way to create more forest against a desert is to start on the edge and keep building ecologically sustainable areas inwards. That might mean digging wells or creating large ponds and lakes to hold what little rainfall there may be. I know there are people that use something called 'swales' to do this. https://naturalbuildingblog.com/greening-us-deserts-80-year-old-swales-near-tucson-arizona/ If you want to create a lasting forest, it has to be able to survive after the initial human intervention. There are a lot of other factors, too, such as which plants to grow in that area (you want hardy, native, 'foundation' species to begin), but you definitely want to work with nature rather than against it.

"Freshwater mussels are one of the most endangered groups of animals on the planet, with 47% either extinct or threatened with extinction. Yet we hear almost nothing about the extinction crisis they face." "In 2019, the death of hundreds of thousands of pheasantshell mussels in the Clinch River in Tennessee, U.S. may have been caused by a virus, and prolonged droughts have killed mussels en masse throughout the U.S. and Australia." https://phys.org/news/2022-01-century-rivers-freshwater-mussels-dying.html The foundations for our food webs (and life as we know it) are usually small and overlooked organisms, but we need them.

I find plant science to be fascinating. Grasses are probably one of the most important species to humanity and the animal kingdom, so I come bringing more information about seagrasses! https://www.seagrasswatch.org/seagrass/ https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/plants-algae/seagrass-and-seagrass-beds#:~:text=Seagrasses grow in salty and,where light levels are high. Once climate change raises ocean levels, perhaps there will be more places for seagrass to grow.... :/