I study the giant clams, bivalves which can grow over three feet long and and are willingly “infected” by a symbiotic algae which they house in an altered stomach cavity. They provide their algae partners with nitrogen, a stable environment and even funnel light in their direction, and the algae happily share the fruit of their labor in the form of sugars. Imagine yourself swallowing algae, storing it in your gut and developing windows in your flesh to let light into your stomach. You’d never have to eat again. This is the growth hack that enables the giant clams to grow to unusual sizes. But it turns out that this lovely, beautiful partnership may not have started so peacefully. The algae may have made an offer the clam couldn’t refuse.

A team from University of Quebec recently discussed what such a fresh infection looks like in mussels and it ain’t pretty. The mussels basically have their shells and bodies overgrown by parasitic Coccomyxa algae, leaving its flesh bright green and transforming its shell from the classic elongated, acute angled margin typical of Mytilus mussels into a strange L-shaped overhang. The more algae are present in the mussel, the more extreme this deformity becomes. The researchers propose that this is no accident, but that as they move in, the algae also manipulates the biochemical pathway that the mussel uses to create its shell.

Mussels, like all bivalves, create their shells by laying down calcium carbonate in layers at the outer edge of the shell. The calcium is sourced from salts in the water column and the carbon primarily comes from carbonate ions also available in the water. This reaction is easier when the pH of the clam’s internal fluid is higher (less acidic), and that is exactly what the algae may assist with. Algae like all plants take in carbon dioxide to use in photosynthesis, and in doing so they increase the pH of the mussel’s body fluid,

The authors note that the region of shell which experiences abnormal thickening in the infected mussels is also the most exposed to light. The Coccomyxa algae may be causing runaway calcification of shell in the regions that they infect, and even may be directly assisting with the calcification in an additional way through the action of an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase, which is used in both their photosynthesis and in shell production (I won’t get into the nitty gritty of that reaction here). But the calcification of the mussels does appear to be in overdrive, as infected mussels were also observed to make pearls!

The algae’s photosynthesis may be assisting the mussel’s shell formation, though overall these are still quite unhealthy organisms of lower weight than their uninfected brethren. Still, Coccomyxa is known to form symbioses with lichens and mosses, so it could be that with enough generations of collaboration and a bit of evolution, the harmful algal infection could become a much more mutually beneficial partnership. It’s not so far fetched to imagine that an ancestor of today’s giant clams got a bad case of gastritis and decided to make the best of a bad situation. Making a deal with their invaders, they became greater than the sum of their parts and evolved to be the giant hyper-calcifiers we know today.