“Were there more connections between us that needed exploration?”—John Hay: The Run. An ecological relationship between the freshwater mussel Anodonta implicata Say and the alewife Pomolobus pseudoharengus (Wilson) is described. Evidence is presented that the parasitic larvae (glochidia) of A. implicata cannot, in the process of attachment, “discriminate” between the tissues of P. pseudoharengus and those of other fishes that may move with the alewives during the run but have a much wider distribution. The conclusion is reached that if, as most evidence appears to indicate, the relationship between the two animals is nevertheless a species‐specific one, the parasitic stage of A. implicata cannot complete its development on the tissues of other fishes to which it can be caused to attach experimentally and, further, that this stage can be of no greater duration than the time spent in freshwater by an individual alewife.
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Dawnport et al. (1965) studied this question.