Instant Genius - Seashells with Dr Helen Scales

Episode Date: August 7, 2022

Marine biologist, broadcaster and author Dr Helen Scales tells us all about seashells, where to find them, and what they can reveal about their inhabitants. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So you can experience exceptional sound at home. Music just as the artist intended. Visit name audio.com to learn more. From BBC Science Focus magazine, this is Instant Genius, a bite-sized masterclass in podcast form. I'm Alice Lipscomb Southwell, the managing editor at BBC Science Focus magazine. In this episode, I talked to Dr. Helen Scales, marine biologist, writer and broadcaster. She's the author of a number of popular science books,

including spirals in time and The Eye of the Shoal. Her latest book, What a Shell Can Tell, is aimed at young explorers and teaches us all about seashell diversity. In this episode, she tells me about the wonders of seashells and their mollusk inhabitants. So just to start off, then, what animals make seashells? So we're talking about a huge group of animals called mollusks, basically. These are soft-bodied creatures. There are tens of thousands of them species around the world, but they're basically slugs and snails and other things like cuttlefish and squid. But the ones that make shells are mostly snails, also things like clams and cockles, things like that. But it's an exoskeleton which provides all sorts of things for these otherwise very soft and squishy animals that

inhabit mostly the ocean, but some of them have evolved to live out on land and you'll find them eating your flowers and vegetables in your gardens. So what is seashells made from? So the basic kind of chemical component is basically the same stuff that chalk is made out of calcium carbonate. And that is laid down by the mollusk from another soft part of their body called the mantle. And they extract the components for that from their food and from the seawater. and then they lay it down in layers. And one cool thing about mollusks is that they make one shell their entire life. They don't shed them and grow a bigger one,

which is what crustaceans, things like crabs and lobsters do. These ones, mollusks basically have one shell, which they grow bigger and bigger as they get older so they can grow inside. But yeah, the basic is calcium carbonate. There's a bit of protein in there as well. And how does the animal make it shell? And you say it's just laying it down over its lifetime. so it's not born with that shell at all.

The really cool thing about mollusks, which makes them different to things like crabs and lobsters, is that they make just one shell for their entire life. So most snails and clams, things like that, most mollusks are, they hatch out of eggs, and many of them do have a tiny shell from that moment that they're born. And then they'll basically make that bigger as their lives go on. So they're secreting their shell from a soft tissue called the mantle,

and this lays down layers of calcium carbonate. and basically, yeah, they just expand their shells so that they can grow bigger inside. And that's a process that can go on throughout their lives. Some mollusks will kind of reach a size and they'll stop. They won't keep getting bigger and bigger. Basically, there is that kind of expansion going on. It's not like a crab that will reach a certain size. Its shell gets a bit too tight and snug and it will catch that and mulled it off

and throw off that old shell and then grow a new one and harden that one up. Yeah, the shells you find basically on a beach, they're the ones that, that animal has been caring around for their entire life. So what are some of the hallmark features you can look for in a shell to tell you more about it? Like they've got so many different colours and shapes. What can we learn about a shell from looking at it? Well, there's so much we can learn from shells. And it's one of the things that I just really hope that people will go out and find shells and sort of learn to tell the stories, really, of the animals that made them. This is really easy to find an empty

shell and not really think about where it came from or how it was made. But by looking for these little clues, you can really start to sort of learn more about that hidden world down beneath the waves that we don't get to see. Some of the hallmark features that you get from shells and you can find from any shell that you find on the beach. Yeah, include things like, well, the colour. Colours and shells are kind of mysterious. We don't necessarily know exactly what's going on with them. But some are quite clearly there for camouflage. So, for instance, here in the UK, if you go to a rocky shore and you find areas with lots of lovely seaweed, you might find periwinkles. Now, these are, are little rounded curling sea snails that hide amongst, including ones that have those

kind of bubbles of air that help them to float when the tide comes in. And we think that Perry Winkles are actually kind of camouflaging themselves to look like those bubbles. And some of them are kind of yellow in colour, some are more greeny, and they can be quite hard to spot. They really do look like seaweed, which is really cool. Now, another thing that colour can be doing in seashells, we think is kind of a warning. So one rather cool example, again from the UK here, are blue-rayed limpets, which are definitely one of my favourites. Now, you need to go and find large kelp, which you can find on rocky shores as well, especially at low tide. And down at the bottom of those, you will often find these little limpets sort of glued onto the stalks of this kelp.

And they have the most iridescent, beautiful, stunning blue stripes across their backs. And we don't really know exactly why they have those colours, but it could possibly be that they are trying to pretend to be something a lot more dangerous than a limpid actually is. And they could be kind of mimicking things like poisonous sea slugs. So their relatives, the slugs that have actually lost their shells, but have toxic chemicals instead to defend themselves. So that's another possibility. Then, you know, shells come in loads of different shapes and sizes. And a lot of that can actually tell you where and how a shell and a mollusk lived during its lifetime.

So if you take something like a scallop, that lovely flat fan-shaped shell, then actually helps them to move. So they use those shells. They have two of them. They're bivalves, which is a big group of the mollusks. And they basically use their shells like castanets. And they can move them together and sort of flap them like the pages of a book. And that helps them to squirt out water. They move by jet propulsion, basically. And they can kind of jump and skip through the water and escape from predators like starfish and things like that. Then you'll find things like some of the snails have very long thin shells. You might find a turret shell, for instance. And those are shells that actually live burrowed down in the seabed. They are, they're sand

and mud burrowers. And they do. Their shells just look like little screws. And you can see how they've evolved to be able to basically push down into the soft sediments where they hide. And then they have a long tube, like a little snorkel, which pushes up to the sea surface. And that's what they breathe through. So you can see, you know, loads of different things from the color and the shape of shells, which are telling you about where it lived and how it lived and so on. How can tell how older shell is, though? So that comes back to what I was saying about how they make just one shell throughout their lives. So this isn't a constant process. They're basically putting down shell, layers of shell when things are good, when the water is nice and warm, when they've got

plenty of food. So it's a bit like trees and tree trunks, which they'll grow seasonally, and you get those tree rings. So if you can cut down a tree or you take a core from one, you can see those lines, those growth lines, which are showing you how many years the tree's been growing for. And you can You can do the same thing for shells. Now, scientists are people who really want to be sure about how old a mollusk was when it was growing will actually cut through a shell and look under a microscope and you can see those layers, those annual layers of growth. But you can also just on a shell you find, some species are easier than others. A lot of the bivalves actually, the cockle shells, clams, that kind of thing you might find on a sandy beach. They will have lines across their shells.

And those, some of them are not sort of annual ones. They're more just because that's the shape that they grow in. But usually you can see a deeper, thicker line. So for instance, across the shell of a cochle, you'll see kind of those sporadic of those lines across the shell. Some of them are much deeper. And we think those are the annual shells. So you can get an idea of counting those up of how many years a shell has lived. And it could well be that they live for five, six, seven years, something like that. It's much harder to do in snails. They kind of cover up their growth lines with lots of other bits and bobs and shapes on their shell. So really the only way to do that would be. to have a microscope and a snail shell slicing device at hand, which do you buy not. But you can

get an idea certainly from some of the bival shells that you might find. Yeah. And sometimes when you're on the beach, you'll find some shells that have got holes in them. Is that something natural? Or is it because a predator's had a little taste of it? Oh, this is one of my favorite things, actually. I love finding these holes. And I'm not talking about, you'll often find just sort of damaged bits on shells, if they've been rolling around on the beach and getting smashed up by waves and stuff, then they will get, you know, kind of fractured. But what you're looking for are these very neat, punctured holes. They, you know, they're really round, neat little circles, quite small, but very characteristic. You can even see in some that they kind of have a little

ridge around the edge of that hole. And what that is, it's basically a sign that that mollusk, be it a bi-valve or a snail, has definitely come to a sticky end. And it's all because there are other predatory snails that do this. So things like dog welks, which you might also find down at the low tide on a rocky shore, they are really fearsome predators. And what they do is they roam around looking for food, looking for other mollusks to eat. They will grab them and then basically drill a hole through their shells. They secrete an acid that softens the shell. And then they use their rasping tongue called the radula, which is covered in, you know, sharp. It's like a very, very rough piece of sandpaper, and they use that to drill these holes. And then, and then they can

secrete digestive enzymes inside the shell and slurp out all the lovely goodness inside. So it's a pretty, pretty grisly way to go, I should think, if you're a mollusk. And you might also, I mean, have a lookout as well for unsuccessful attacks. Like, sometimes it doesn't work. And you might find a shell that that was being drilled by a dog welk or other things like necklace shells are also predators. They didn't quite get all the way through. So it's almost like a little etched circle but doesn't punch all the way through. So something happened. The predator gave up or it got eaten by something else maybe.

And the prey survived to live and grow another day. Now how come some shellfish can form such fantastic spirals? Do they know maths? It's a great question. And it does seem that way. If you look at the amazing array of shapes that we have amongst all, like thousands of different types of seashells, you might think that they know a thing or two about mathematics. And especially as we actually know, some very high-powered thinkers over the last, you know, centuries have thought about this. People have always long wondered how it is we see these elegant spirals in nature, including in things like seashells, and have come up with mathematical explanations for how those could come about.

You know, one of the key shape we see in seashells is what we call the logarithmic spiral. And it's actually quite a simple thing. Essentially, if you imagine that a spiral is a shape that's expanding outwards as it rotates around a central point, a logarithmic spiral is one that expands by a constant rate as it gets bigger. So each time you kind of imagine one sort of full turn of that spiral, it expands outwards by the same amount during each of those turns. And we do see this in lots of different parts of nature. It's not just shells.

It's things like in the arms of an expanding galaxy. It's the path that a moth would take as it's flying in towards a candle, for instance, or a torchlight. But we do see it in all of these mollus, and it does seem to be something they just do. And it's not that they know that there's a mathematical formula behind it. We've just sort of worked that out afterwards. But I think it really comes down to this idea of how they grow their shells. you know, bit by bit they're growing bigger and they do have this twisting shape. So they are kind of laying down new shell material in these elegant spirals, twisting it around

their bodies. And somehow, we don't know how, but somehow they know how to do that and they know how to come back to keep on making those elegant shapes as they grow bigger. But, you know, it's been going on for hundreds of millions of years. You can find amazing spiraling ammonite shells, you know, dating about hundreds of millions of years that we're doing that. and these beautiful, beautiful spirals that you see if you cut through a shell as well and see that kind of cross-through shape.

And they were doing it back then. So this is a really fundamental part of a mollusk's shape and growth. And it seems to be, you know, it's been going on throughout their lineage for a very long time. Now, some shellfish, probably most famously the cone shells, have this really beautiful patterning that almost looks painted. So how do they make this pattern? Can they see it as they're laying it down? Yeah, the patterns on many shells.

are absolutely stunning. And again, as well as the shape of the actual shell itself, the patterns just are enormously diverse and just stunning. And it's why people collect shells and they have done for hundreds of years as well. It's one of those things that people find really captivating about shells. But again, it's kind of a mystery. We don't really fully understand how they're made or why they're made as well. I mean, it is something that we're still, we have some ideas about, but we're not quite sure. When it comes to things like cone shells and cone snails, that they can be called snails or shells, either way. They, I mean, they are one of the groups of mollusks that live,

burrowed in the seabed most of the time. They spend the daytime, certainly, hiding away in the sand. So, no, nothing is seeing those patterns and not even each other. They only come out at night, and that's when they're hunting. So why have this pattern at all? It is a wonderful mystery. Now, one idea that is kind of a leading theory is that it actually could be something to do with that shell-making process. So it could have, it could be in a way, a sort of a reminder

to the mollusk where it left off when it was last making shell. So almost like a kind of a marker point of like, well, he were, you know, line yourself up with this part of the pattern, carry-all-making shell, and you'll keep on making that beautiful, elegant spiral that we just talked about. What we do think is that rather than seeing these patterns, snails and other mollusks may well be able to sense the chemicals that are laid down in them. We know a little bit about what makes the pattern themselves. It is, we think it's different pigments that they secrete into the shell as it's being made. But a lot of them haven't actually been identified yet. Funnily enough, this isn't an area of research that it gets a lot of funding. So there's a lot of

questions we still haven't answered, including why shells are patterns, beautiful. But yeah, it's possible that the soft tissue, this mantle that makes the shell actually has these sensory cells which can detect these pigments that are laid down, and that's sort of essentially how they know to line themselves back up and carry on making shell. But really, you know, we don't really know. Again, there's like mathematical answers to that in terms of you can sort of see these patterns evolving from quite simple rules, if you like. So it's not that they necessarily have to be really complex in their nervous systems to be able to make these patterns. They could just sort of emerge from quite simple rules. But ultimately what function they serve is one of

nature's great mysteries. Now we've said about shells being pretty on the outside, but why are some shells so shiny on the inside? Oh, it's a lovely question. And it's one of the things that actually drew me to shells when I was, you know, first as a kid pottering around on beaches and falling in love with the ocean. I used to really love finding shells that have been worn away on the outside. so you can see that internal shiny layer, the Naker, the mother of pearl that grows on the inside. And you might still find those. Look out for those, you know, these older worn shells. Sometimes even with a live animal still inside them and you can actually see bits of the shells that have worn away so you can see this internal layer. And it's only much more recently that scientists have found out material scientists have basically looked at this stuff and found out that it's incredibly strong.

It may look beautiful, but actually it's secret is that it's one of the toughest known materials that, we have in the natural world amongst animals. And it all comes down to the way that it's laid down and the internal structure of that. It's still basically calcium carbonate, pretty much the same stuff that the external layers of the shell are made from. But because of the structure, the tiny nanostructure of that calcium carbonate and the way that it's laid down by the mollusk, it becomes, it almost basically, it absorbs any shocks and cracks that are imposed on it. So we're basically talking about being attacked by things like crabs that might grab onto a shell and try and sort of crack the shell. But the layer of Mother of Pearl, this shiny, shiny

layer can actually stop the energy of a crack from propagating in its tracks and make it much less likely that this thing is going to shatter. So if you think about it, if you take, you know, shells are really tough. Like if you step on one, it's going to do nothing more than really hurt your foot. And that's partly coming down to this amazing strong layer of Naker, mother of pearl, as it's called, on the inside. You know, you could, if you did, you can easily snap a piece of chalk, you know, that stuff is really brittle, but sea shells are incredibly tough. And a lot of that does come down to this amazing kind of engineered structure of that

shiny layer on the inside of a shell, which also incidentally is the same stuff that pearls are made of off. And when you've got that bit of grit that ends up inside of a bivalve, usually shell, they use the same stuff to kind of coat that bit of nasty parasite or grit or whatever it is and make it smooth and harmless. So it's a similar material that makes gleaming lovely pearls as well. Now what's the biggest seashell that we know about? So the biggest one is the giant clam. It's a bivalve, so it comes in two bits that in life are hinged together like the pages of a book. And, you know, the really biggest one, Tridacna, I guess. They should live.

for over a century given a chance, and they can grow to over, at least over a meter wide. And I think a pair of giant clam shells weighs in about the same as a couple of baby elephants. I mean, they are huge, huge, great big things. And again, a very long-lived, which is what we see in several other mollusk as well. One of the longest lives is a much smaller clam, one that lives down in the cold waters of the Atlantic, called the Ocean Cahawk. And they've been found to live for at least 500 years. They don't do very much in that time.

They sit very quietly. Giant clams can live for ages and grow these fabulous enormous shells. You know, they really are. When you meet one, I've been very lucky to go to some parts of the Pacific where they have been left to lead very long lives. And you do just have that sense of meeting a great kind of, you know, centenarian ancient creature that's been sitting in that one spot on the coral reef for, you know, decades and decades. And it's a really wonderful thing to encounter. So where's the best place to go and look for seashells? Okay, so, I mean, if you're in the UK, then, or kind of anywhere around the North Atlantic coasts, then, you know, get yourself down to the coastline. And wherever you are, you'll find some kind of seashells. Basically, different types of habitats on the coastlines will provide you with different sorts of shells to find.

One of my favourite places to go are rocky shores. So areas where you've got rocks that are providing tide pools when the tide goes out, lots of seaweed things like that. That's where you're going to find loads of amazing sea snails, these lovely. spiraling shells and a bunch of bi-valves and things as well. So that for me is a really wonderful place to look for things. You might find Kytans, these wonderful little mollusks, which I haven't mentioned yet, but they have their shells and eight little plates across their back. They look a bit like a woodlouse clamped onto a rock. And you're going to need to look under rocks at low tide to find things like that, but they're really lovely. So that's fun. And yeah, and get yourself down there an hour or so before low tide. Have a look at tide, we'll see when that is. And then basically, you know,

watch out as the tide's coming back in. But that will give you access to some parts of the ocean that are really only briefly exposed at low tide. So it's like you're walking, you know, you're walking on the seabed just for an hour or so and seeing creatures that would live usually covered by ocean, which is lovely. But sandy beaches as well, you'll get loads of lovely shells there. Often you'll find bivalves, clams, cobbles and so on, which actually live in the sand beneath your feet. So, you know, the ones you're seeing are the other ones that have come to the end of their lives and their empty shells have come to the surface. But just next time you do, walk across the sandy beach, just spare a moment to think about all of the wonderful mollusks that

are down beneath your feet that you're walking across. They will become much more active when the tide is in. They'll start feeding and so on and breathing. But they're hiding down there, waiting for, waiting for the tide to come in. But yeah, if you're really brave, you might even want to head out into estuaries, muddy areas. There are also lots of shells to find there, often very tiny ones, but very important, very abundant tiny shells that are really important food for other things like seabirds you might find in places like that. But yeah, pretty much any way you want to look. Strand lines are also a good place for things that are washing up. You might also find cuttle bones, which are the internal shells of the mollusks that are cuttlefish. So they lost their outside shells,

but they have this one on the inside, which helps them to float around. And they often end up on the kind of high tide line with bits of seaweed and things. And you might just be lucky. If you're in a, if you're very, very lucky. Now, I never have been. You might find yourself in the right place to find an argonaut shell. And they really are like treasures of the ocean. These are the only shells that octopuses still make. There's one little group group of octopuses. Most octopuses way back in their lineage, their ancestors gave up on making shells. They are mollusks, but they don't make shells. But this one group basically re-evolved the ability to make shells. And they're also known as the paper nautilus. And they make these absolutely delicate, beautiful shells which they live inside. It's the females that make them.

They live inside them and use them to lay their eggs and they swim around the open ocean. And just occasionally they'll sweep up onto a beach. And they're so delicate and they're so hard to find that that really is a huge, a beautiful treasure. So you never know. If you find one of those, then yeah, that's a wonderful find. That's absolutely amazing. And is it okay to take seashells home once you found them? Good question. Really good question. Yes, it is. Basically, it is all right. There's a few simple rules and kind of obvious rules that you can abide by, which will mean that you have less of an impact on the environment when you go looking for shells. So, you know, don't go trudging over sensitive bits of other animals and things.

You know, take care of yourself as well. Don't go slipping over when you're walking on seaweed and things like that. If you're going to Rocky Shores and looking under rocks, make sure you put them back. You know, animals have adapted to be living in particular places and they don't want to be just turned over into the dry air. Don't take living seashells. That would be a good rule. Don't grab an animal that's still living inside and decide you want it. You know, only take ones that are already empty. And, you know, depending on where you are in the world, also maybe be a bit careful.

If you are in the tropical areas where there's a possibility of a cone shell, then I would generally advise caution because some of them are quite poisonous. So in the UK, I think you're fine. But, you know, some other parts of the world, you might want to just take a bit of care when you're looking around on the shoreline. But, yeah, I mean, don't take home satisfaction. and sacks of them. And I would, if you can, ask you to think twice about buying shells, because there isn't much regulation of the shell trade. And there is some unsustainable

collecting practices going on. Most of the shells that are sold, the beautiful, shiny ones, that they will have been taken while they're still alive. People don't wait for those ones to die. So it's very hard to know if they have been sustainably caught. So that, I would say, if you are concerned, as I think you should be hopefully about the environment and about looking after these amazing places, then the shell trade isn't necessarily the thing to go to. But if it's you on a beach and you're finding shells that you want to have as a memory of what you've seen that day, or you want to take them home to help identify, get yourself a good ID guide and figure out what you've seen, then, yeah, it's absolutely fine.

And why is it important that we study seashells? That's a really good question. And, you know, it might not seem that obvious that, you know, the science of mollusk and the science of shells is important. And I think there's a lot of reasons why it is. I mean, from just simply knowing more about our planet, mollusks are a huge group. We think there could be hundreds of thousands of species and loads of them we still haven't found. Some in some really extreme and amazing places, like down on hydrothermal vents and in the deep ocean, in trenches, things like that.

So, you know, just that is one reason why we need to go and find these species, learn more about their lives and how they're contributing to biodiversity and functioning ecosystems, things like that. But equally, mollusks and sea shells are one of those groups of animals that are really on the forefront of many of the biggest impacts that humanity is imposing on the living world at the moment. And in the ocean, we have these issues of global warming and sea temperature rising and also ocean acidification. Aside from rising temperatures because of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, a lot of the calm dioxide we're releasing is ending up in the ocean. And that is making the seas more acidic. And this is a problem for animals that live inside a chalky skeleton, basically, because it becomes very difficult for them to make those shells. It becomes energetically much more costly to create a shell that's robust

that isn't just going to fall apart as soon as a crab comes and grabs them or a dog whelk twice to drill through them. And so we know already some of the most vulnerable groups of animals to ocean acidification are, for instance, really tiny snails that are pelagic. They swim through the open water. They're actually part of the plankton, things called sea butterflies or terrapods. And, yeah, they have very thin, delicate shells, and studies have shown that they're really vulnerable to even minor increases in acidity, just simply because it makes life really tough for them. And they're obviously really important in and of themselves.

They're a whole bunch of different species. But they're also really important in the ecosystem. They're really important food for other animals in some parts of the world and parts of the ocean. their staple diet for all sorts of things, for seabirds, for fish, for whales. So, you know, we really need to look after and we'll think about these sort of really key species in ocean food webs. And a lot of them are mollusks and a lot of them are going to get hit hard as more carbon dioxide gets absorbed into the ocean. You know, add on top of that rising sea temperatures and it just makes life even harder for them in the ocean. So we need to study them. We need to

know what's happening and also figure out ways to try and help them as much as possible. perhaps by reducing other threats that we can have an immediate control on, overfishing, over harvesting, that kind of thing. A lot of mollusks have been really hit hard. Oysters, clams, things like that, have muscles have been overfished. And they create habitat for other species. So, you know, mollusks are wonderful things. They're very important for other animals too and other parts of the ecosystem.

And they, you know, they really do need to be looked after as much as we possibly can. And, you know, because of the roles they play much wider than just themselves. So, yeah, they're pretty important things. Yeah. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius. That was Marine Biologist and writer, Dr. Helen Scales. Her latest book, What a Shell Can Tell, is out now. The latest issue of BBC Science Focus magazine is now available.

Pick up a copy and store or visit sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by name, audio and focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have digital precision with analog warmth. Alongside French acoustic specialist vocal, Name creates high-end audio systems combining innovation with craftsmanship, so you can listen to music, just as the artist intended. Discover more at name audio.com.

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