Glossary:
Adductor:  Typically, one of a pair of muscles that close the valves of a bivalved shell.

Aperture:  An opening or gap.

Benthic:  Bottom-dwelling.

Brooding:  To care for eggs either inside or outside the female body, during at least the early stages of development.

Bursa:  A pouch-like structure. Bursa commonly refers to a female reproductive chamber for the reception and temporary storage of sperm received at copulation.

Byssal threads;Byssus:  A tough protein secretion produced by a gland in the bivalve foot and commonly in the form of threads used for attachment.

Cryptofaunal: Cryptofaunal is used here as the underside of rocks.

Deposit feeding:  Feeding upon detritus that has settled to the bottom of marine and freshwater environments.

Detritus:  Fragments of plant or animal remains.

Diductor:  Typically, ligaments that open the valves of a bivalved shell.

Epifaunal:  Epifaunal is used here as on the top side of rocks.

Hemocoel:  A voluminous, blood-filled cavity, occupying most or all of the body.

Infaunal:  In the sediment. In Argyle, the sediment consists of varying amounts of shell hash, small pebbles, sand, mud, clay.

Operculum:  A lid or covering to a chamber-like structure.

Pelagic:  Living, floating, or swimming in the water column.

Phylum, Phyla (pl.):

Plankton:  Organisms suspended in the water column.

Sabellid:  Phylum Annelida, Family Sabellidae. A family of annelid (segmented) worms that can be distinguished in the field by having maroon or red-colored tentacles and  living in a tube that is never calcareous.

Semisessile:  Organisms attached to a surface for the majority of their adult life, but have a behavior which enables organism to move and reattach elsewhere: sea anemones crawl: mussels dissolve their byssal threads, crawl and reattach byssal threads elsewhere.

Serpulid:  Phylum Annelida, Family Serpulidae. A family of annelid (segmented) worms that can be distinguished in the field by living in calcareous tub with a retractable tentacular structure. Under the microscope, one radiole of the tentacular crown is modified as an operculum.

Sessile:  Organisms attached to a substrate for their entire adult life.

Substrate:  A solid surface.  The substrate at Argyle includes: smooth smallrocks, large rough rocks, sand, anoxic mud, other mud, dead clam and barnacle shells, and live oyster and barnacle shells.

Suspension feeding:  Feeding on particles (plankton and detritus) suspended in the water.

Thalweg:  Line which follows the deepest part of a stream.

Trochophore:  Type of larva found in molluscs, annelids, and other groups in which  the larval body is ringed by a girdle of cilia, the prototroch.

Veliger:  Molluscan planktotrophic larva that supersedes the trochophore, and in which the shell, foot, velum and other structures make their appearance.

Zoea:  Penulitimate larval stage of many decapod crustaceans.  Precedes the postlarval stage.
 

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