American Museum of Natural History

By studying calcifying organisms, Leanne aims to better understand the impacts of human activity on marine ecosystems. Through her research, she hopes to influence policy that helps protect marine calcifiers in the future.

“Why is this important? The idea is that the more porous the shell, the weaker it is. Mussels need strong, robust shells to protect their inner soft organs—and that strong 3D structure is important for ecosystem function as habitat formers and storm defenses.

Currently, the changes seen in shell porosity are not large enough to influence the material properties, so we aren’t seeing weaker shells just yet. But with further warming in our oceans being predicted, this could potentially lead to even more porous shells, potentially impacting mussels’ function as habitat formers and storm defenses, as well as their ability to protect themselves from predation,” Melbourne explains.

Learn more about her research here.

The noble pen shell (Pinna nobilis) is one of the largest bivalves, native to the Mediterranean region, where it lives in sea grass beds, partly buried in soft sediment and anchored by the byssus, which means “fine linen” in Greek. Since antiquity and until the mid-twentieth century—mainly in Taranto (Apulia) and Sardinia—the Pinna’s byssus or “sea silk,” has been harvested for the manufacture of luxurious textiles that are famous for their fine texture, durability, and bright golden color. Some scholars theorize that the Golden Fleece of the Argonauts in Greek mythology was actually a cloth of byssus. The oldest surviving object made from sea silk is a knitted cap from the fourteenth century discovered during excavations in the vicinity of St. Denis, north of Paris. Due to overharvesting for food, the noble pen shell has become endangered, and today only a handful of artisans in Sardinia preserve the craft of sea-silk processing for posterity.

Image: Pinna nobilis (noble pen shell); from Giuseppe Saverio Poli, Testacea utriusque Siciliae . . . , 1791–1827

This print is included in the latest literary offering from the American Museum of Natural History and Sterling Signature: The Seashell Collector. The boxed set features a booklet containing some of the most beautiful images of seashells from texts held in the Museum’s Rare Book Collection, along with lessons about the creatures who call these shells home and background about how shells are formed and the role they have played throughout human history, as decoration, currency, and much more.

Learn more about The Seashell Collector.