

This project aims to understand how surfclams are affected by the changing chemistry of their habitat.
Atlantic surfclams support an important commercial fishery in the Northeast United States, with landings valued at nearly $30 million in 2019. They also provide environmental benefits, such as removing excess nutrients from the water, and are one of the largest bivalves on the East Coast. We characterize the seafloor habitats of Atlantic surfclams to understand their susceptibility to ocean acidification.
About a quarter of the human-produced carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean. This causes changes to water chemistry, such as lowering pH, which is called ocean acidification. We are studying how ocean acidification may affect commercial bivalve species, including Atlantic surfclams.
Our activities include:
Milford Lab scientists built a model that projects Atlantic surfclam growth based on water temperature and the partial pressure of carbon dioxide, a commonly used metric of ocean acidification. This model indicates that ocean acidification will negatively affect surfclam growth and reproduction by the year 2100, under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s high carbon dioxide emission scenario.
Now we are studying surfclam populations in their natural habitat to see how well real-world observations match these model predictions. We will use data collected in the field to refine our growth model for surfclams, making it more accurate.
We sample surfclam seafloor habitats associated with surfclams monthly to find out whether their growth rate correlates with the chemistry of the sediment in which they burrow. We call the water between sediment grains porewater. Scientists currently know much less about changes to sediment porewater chemistry than they know about the overlying waters, yet surfclams spend most of their time burrowed in the seafloor.
Although the Atlantic surfclam fishery is managed as a single species, there are actually two genetically distinct subspecies native to Massachusetts waters. Spisula solidissima solidissima thrives in deeper water off the northern coast of Cape Cod. This subspecies grows larger and has a longer lifespan than the southern subspecies, Spisula solidissima similis. The smaller subspecies thrives in areas with riverine influence and is more tolerant of warm water and lower pH conditions.
The two subspecies may adapt to different sediment carbonate chemistry conditions in their respective habitats. We will use a transplant experiment to better understand the role of the environment and genetics on the growth of surfclams.
This information will help the commercial surfclam industry, recreational fishermen, and the developing surfclam aquaculture industry.
Undergraduate students at Massachusetts Maritime Academy are providing field support for this project as they learn about shellfish biology and ocean acidification.
We are monitoring environmental conditions in surfclam habitats at five sites on Cape Cod, Massachusetts:
We are also conducting transplant experiments at three of these sites:
We sample habitats and their associated surfclams monthly to find out whether their growth rate correlates with the sediment chemistry where they live. We are collecting seawater, sediment porewater, sediment, and surfclams at each of our study sites. Sediment porewater is collected from depths of: 2 cm, 5 cm, 15 cm, 20 cm. In each seawater sample, we measure:
We also take sediment cores to measure grain size as well as organic and carbonate content. For each sediment sample, we measure:
In spring 2022, we began a transplant experiment to evaluate the growth of the northern subspecies in their native habitat. We also evaluated the habitat dominated by the southern subspecies. Our research will help define the role of the environment on growth compared with the role of genetic differences in populations and subspecies.
The transplant experiment will last for 9 to 12 months and include at least three sampling periods. We will keep surfclams in nylon mesh enclosures and study their growth during this time, with 4 to 6 enclosures per treatment.
During the three sampling periods, we will measure growth and monitor environmental conditions in each enclosure, including carbonate chemistry, temperature, and chlorophyll a, a measure of food availability. We will also conduct biodeposition experiments to measure feeding and metabolism.
We will expose each subspecies to two different substrates: sediment from the site and sediment from the site mixed with crushed shell. Previous studies found that adding crushed shell can raise the pH of the surface sediment. Shell is made of calcium carbonate and buffers the sediment against changes in pH. This comparison will help us learn if adding crushed shell raises sediment pH and improves the growth of surfclams. If this strategy is effective, the developing surfclam aquaculture industry could use it to adapt to lower pH conditions in the area.
Toward the end of the experiment, we will use transcriptomics to look at differences in gene expression between surfclams kept in ambient sediment and those in sediment with crushed shell.
We will test whether the genes that are “turned on” and expressed by surfclams differ depending on sediment pH. We will determine if, in sediments with lower pH, more genes associated with greater physiological stress, metabolism, and calcification are “turned on” or upregulated. This result would indicate that there is a genetic component to acclimation to lower pH conditions.
NOAA Ocean Acidification Program provides funding for this project.
How Will Atlantic Surfclams Fare in a Changing Ocean?