Page last updated
14 January 2014

About the MUSSEL Project:

The MUSSELp is:

Making the World a Better Place, One Mollusk at a Time.

The MUSSEL Project (MUSSELp, for short) is an on-going study aimed at the global revision of the classification of the Unionoida, otherwise known as freshwater mussels. The two principle investigators, Daniel L. Graf (DLG) and Kevin S. Cummings (KSC), combine their efforts to maintain an efficient malacological strike force equally capable of working in remote collection localities or urban mollusk collections.

Toward this end, we are compiling an exhaustive database of all Recent unionoid species and genera described to-date. This database will eventually serve as the basis for a universal synthesis and revision of freshwater mussel taxonomy. Furthermore, we apply cladistic methods to test our hypotheses of evolutionary relationships. This allows us to use macroevolutionary pattern to test hypotheses of macroevolutionary process.