Mollusks & Malacology — Jonathan Galka

Mollusks, Malacology, Multispecies Histories

As a longstanding member of the Broward Shell Club, I have a lifelong love for the history of snails, snail sciences (both vernacular and professional), and snail technologies. I am interested most by what partnering with mollusks might teach us about our shared environments, about what it means to be committed to nonhuman others, and in how collectors, scientists, engineers, and a broad array of other humans have conceived those relationships in the past and present. Some recent and ongoing projects are outlined below.

Liguus Landscapes: Amateur Liggers, Professional Malacology, and the Social Lives of Snail Sciences

Liguus fasciatus is a species of tree snail endemic to Southern Florida and Cuba, but they are also more than this. To understand what Liguus are, this paper examines snail enthusiasts, collectors, researchers, and conservationists — collectively self-identified as Liggers — in their varied landscapes. Beginning with an examination of early Liggers’ work in Florida and Cuba, I demonstrate how notions of taxonomy and biogeography informed later efforts to understand Liguus hybridization and conservation. A heterogeneous community of Liggers has had varied and at times contradictory commitments and genealogizing those commitments illuminates the factors underpinning a decision to undertake the until now little-chronicled large-scale and sustained transplantation of every living Floridian form of Liguus fasciatus into Everglades National Park. The social history of Liggers and Liguus fundamentally blurs distinctions between professional scientists and amateur naturalists. The experiences of a cast of Liggers and their Liguus snails historicize the complex character of human-animal relations and speak to the increasing endangerment of many similarly range-restricted invertebrates.

Florida Tree Snails (Liguus fasciatus) arranged by color form. Coll. Bob Pace.

Partula treesnails, adorning a mid-20th century souvenir, French Polynesia.

Mollusk loves: Becoming with native and introduced land snails in the Hawaiian Islands

Hawaiian island land snails once represented one of the most diverse archipelagic evolutionary radiations. Historically, indigenous Hawaiians (Kānaka maoli) and Westerners also heard some snails (kāhuli) sing. Today, most of these species are extinct or endangered. One major cause has been the intentional mid-20th century introduction of a Floridian land snail, Euglandina rosea, for the biological control of another mollusk, Lissachatina fulica. First considering the evolutionary biological work of John Gulick and his counterparts to genealogize contemporary snail-love, I then elaborate on what care and hope might mean with Pacific Island land snails living through ongoing environmental dispossession and alteration. I then reconsider Euglandina on parallel conceptual terms, engaging natural historical and laboratory accounts to think with the introduced mollusk beyond its categorization as ‘alien invader’. Loving Euglandina as well as kāhuli may help realize livable futures for indigenous and introduced Hawaiian island mollusks alike, in a world hopefully full of snail-song.

Angela Merkel and the Dreissena Monitor. From the Archives of Jost Borcherding.

For some time now I have been interested in role role that bivalve mollusks, especially mussels including Dreissena spp., have had in the design of technology for both passive and active biomonitoring of a broad array of pollutants across a range of settings. My interest spans the 140+ year history of noticing a shared chemical environment with mollusks, but it has centered primarily on the history of mussel-monitoring plans and devices designed in the 1970s and 1980s, especially the Mosselmonitor and the Dreissena Monitor.

My interests in the history of passive and active biomonitoring with mussels have led me to investigate the US Mussel Watch Program and the subsequent International Mussel Watch. Inspired by episodes of coastal pollution in Southern California, the Mussel Watch programs were conceived (but never entirely realized) as late-20th century projects with globalizing aspirations. They sought to construct a nationwide and then worldwide network of bivalved mollusks and human monitors as passive indicators of new and complex environmental pollutants.

Crassostrea virginica collected in Laguna Madre, Mexico, as part of the IMW. COll. Dept. of MOllusks, Harvard MCZ.

Isognoma alatus collected in Bowden, Jamaica, as part of the IMW. coll. Dept. of Mollusks, Harvard MCZ.

Mytella guayanensis collected in Caroni Swamp, Trinidad, as part of the IMW. coll. Dept. of Mollusks, Harvard MCZ.

Most recently, I have begun to research the dynamics of in situ and ex situ conservation among invertebrates in the ancient lakes of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. There is change afoot in these lakes. These five lakes and their drainages are home to several spectacular evolutionary radiations: mollusks of the genus Tylomelania, shrimp of the genus Caridina, and Telmatherinid silversides, to name a few. Even though in the late 1990s, these species flocks were among the least degraded in the region, today, as the group Sulawesi Keepers implores, much of the “freshwater fauna of Sulawesi is at risk of extinction.” This research will investigate how novel forms of conservation practice are emerging between aquarists and hobbyists in Europe, nickel mining’s interest in in situ interventions, and the local communities bordering Sulawesi’s ancient lakes.

Open-pit gold mine, Pinasungkula, Bitung, North Sulawesi.