The impacts and potential affecting mechanism of pile-driving noise on metabolism of the thick-shell mussel Mytilus coruscus.

Pile-driving noise causes significant metabolic disruption in the thick-shell mussel Mytilus coruscus, including loss of heart rate periodicity and altered gene expression patterns.

• Why it matters: Understanding how anthropogenic noise impacts sessile bivalves is crucial because these species are more vulnerable to pollution, yet their physiological responses and mechanisms remain poorly understood.
• What they did: The study exposed Mytilus coruscus to 80 dB pile-driving noise for over two weeks, measuring oxygen consumption, ammonia excretion, heart rate, clock gene expression, and metabolic gene activity at multiple time points.
• The result: Results showed that noise exposure disrupted diurnal metabolic rhythms and gene expression, impairing neural regulation and potentially threatening the survival of sessile bivalves in noisy environments.