After giving a talk at the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Sanibel, Cynthia Barnett was haunted by something she learned during her visit.
A survey of mostly out-of-state museum-goers revealed an overwhelming majority of visitors – some 90 percent – did not know that seashells are built by a living animal.
“Most people thought they were some kind of rock or stone,” Barnett said. “I was so disturbed by that fact I couldn’t even sleep that night.”
An award-winning author and University of Florida journalism professor who covers water and climate, Barnett was looking to write a book about oceans at the time, but she needed an entry point. Eventually, she fell asleep.
“By the time I woke up the next morning, I knew I was going to write about seashells,” Barnett said.
Shared passion among disciplines
Barnett was speaking at Stetson Law as part of the Institute for Biodiversity Law & Policy Foreman Biodiversity Lecture Series. Introducing her, Law Professor and Institute Director Royal Gardner said it is important to hear from environmental advocates from other sectors.
“The point of the lecture series is to not just bring in environmental attorneys… but also people from other disciplines, because if we’re going to make any progress on environmental issues, it’s through a multidisciplinary approach,” Gardner said.
Throughout her lecture, Barnett encouraged her audience to use storytelling in their work advocating for the environment, given how persuasive it can be.
Universally beloved, but misunderstood
In her acclaimed book, The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans, each chapter is built around a mollusk species whose shell had significance to humanity. Throughout history, humans have used seashells in tools, dye, jewelry, and even as currency.
Their universal appeal has captivated families of beachcombers, great painters, and countless others.
“There’s something fundamental about seashells that pleases the brain,” Barnett said.
Their presence throughout the fossil record has led to landmark scientific discoveries about the age of the earth, the complexity of neanderthal brains, and ancient trade routes.
Her book covers everything from the presence of lightning whelk shells from Florida’s Gulf Coast in the Cahokia Mounds near St. Louis to the “shell madness” sparked by the gorgeous tropical shells Dutch sailors brought back from trade expeditions.
From shell shop to major conglomerate
Barnett told the story of a shop owner named Marcus Samuel, who sold shells in London’s East End, in particular, popular shell-encrusted boxes.
His company partnered with another that started trading kerosene and, eventually, oil. They built the first tanker that could safely transport oil through the Suez Canal. The vessel was named after the murex (the mollusk from which the Phoenicians extracted purple dyes).
Eventually, the company changed its name to Shell Oil.
Barnett noted the irony that climate change associated with the burning of fossil fuels is causing the Mediterranean Sea to warm faster than others part of the ocean – so much so that a scientist Barnett knows in the region told her that murex are struggling to survive.
Mollusks in peril
Shellfish can “whip somersaults” and “look at you with curious eyes,” but they are also “extraordinary architects,” Barnett said, that build their shells using minerals from the marine environment, namely calcium carbonate.
“They layer minerals to build their shells, and their reliance on those minerals is making them sentinels for what’s happening to the ocean,” she said.
Since oceans absorb nearly a third of the extra carbon dioxide humans have sent into the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution, they are now 30 percent more acidic. This has become a problem for mollusks that use calcium to form their shells.
“Shelled animals are really showing us what’s happening to the ocean in just the same way that they once showed us evolution and geologic change,” she said. Scientists have also noticed mollusks having trouble locomoting, pockmarks on their shells, and mass die-offs during major heat events.
Ending on a high note
Concluding her lecture, Barnett said that while it is important to inform audiences of environmental perils, too much gloom-and-doom can cause audiences to shut down. She ended her talk by highlighting a thriving population of bay scallops in Florida’s Big Bend, a protected stretch of coastline with sparse development.
Florida’s bay scallop populations have been lost in almost every other bay in Florida, she said, including Tampa, Pensacola, and Biscayne bays.
“They are alive and well in the Big Bend, where the seagrass meadows are healthy,” she said. “I will also say that the manatees are not dying in that part of Florida as they are in so much of the rest of Florida. I think there are some really important comparisons to be made about the Big Bend and why it’s relatively healthy.”
Original source can be found here.