Prying into the private lives of mussels and oysters
by Dr. Luke Miller, San Diego State University
To many people, shellfish such as oysters and mussels seem like they’re just rocks with food inside. But before they arrive on a dinner table, those animals spend years stuck to rocks, piers, boats, and each other, where they make a living sucking up whatever happens to be floating by in the water. It's not a glamorous life by any measure, but mussels and oysters are doing their part to keep our bays and coasts lively and productive, while having to avoid all sorts of threats to their survival. Using cutting-edge technology (and some old-fashioned methods), we can gain a window into the lives of these shellfish, and learn about how they cope with changing temperatures, salinity, oxygen, and even human pollution. With modern internet-connected oysters, we can keep tabs on their behavior in local estuaries and bays and look for changes in behavior that might be associated with a variety of different stressors.
Luke Miller is variously a marine ecophysiologist, biomechanic, intertidal ecologist, or just gadget guy, depending on the day and the weather. Luke is primarily interested in how ocean animals deal with the physical environment including the weather and waves, as well as how they deal with each other via competition and predation. Much of his research has focused on Pacific coast rocky intertidal and estuary habitats from California to Alaska, but he has also worked on New England rocky shore communities, on Antarctic scallops, and in kelp forests. Luke was born and raised in San Pedro - more specifically in the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium during afternoons after school and during the summer. Luke graduated from San Pedro High School, then went on to school at UC Santa Barbara and Stanford University, and is currently an Associate Professor of Biology at San Diego State University.
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