Listening to Mussels, Listening to Goldberg: A Personal Reflection on “The Mussel Watch” and a Life with Perna viridis

Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Malaysia

*Corresponding author: Prof. Dr. Chee Kong Yap, Full Professor in Biology and Ecotoxicology, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia, E-mail: [email protected]

Received Date: January 27 2026

Publication Date: May 13, 2026

Citation: Yap CK. (2026). Listening to Mussels, Listening to Goldberg: A Personal Reflection on “The Mussel Watch” and a Life with Perna viridis. Nutraceutical Res. 5(2):25.

Copyright: Yap CK, © (2026).

ABSTRACT

Prof. Edward D. Goldberg (1975)’s one-page paper “The Mussel Watch – A first step in global marine monitoring” is widely recognised as the conceptual origin of modern bivalve-based biomonitoring. A recent Scopus search shows that this paper has accumulated 647 citations between 1976 and 2025, confirming its enduring influence on marine pollution science. Yet for me, its impact has never been only about citation counts. Encountering the Mussel Watch idea as a young trainee in 1998 opened a pathway from basic biology to a lifelong dialogue with a single species, the green-lipped mussel Perna viridis. In this reflection, I revisit Goldberg (1975)’s vision and trace how it shaped and continues to shape my research trajectory, from early work correlating sediment geochemistry with tissue metal burdens to later explorations of shells, byssus, periostracum and soft tissues as multi-matrix biomonitors in Peninsular Malaysia. I frame this journey around three intertwined dispositions that Mussel Watch helped cultivate in me: curiosity about what mussels are “saying” about their environment, compassion for coastal ecosystems and communities that live with contamination, and the disciplined intellect required to translate those signals into reliable evidence. Revisiting Goldberg (1975)’s paper after many years has renewed a sense of childlike wonder, as if speaking again to the mussels that quietly archived our coastal history. The paper concludes by reflecting on how foundational concepts can nourish a pedagogy of gratitude, where students learn not only methods and statistics but also how to see organisms as partners in understanding planetary health.

Keywords: Mussel Watch; Biomonitoring; Curiosity and compassion; Ecotoxicology; Personal reflection.