Professor of Physics Rebecca Metzler, in collaboration with David Gillikin of Union College, was awarded $4,275 for work on the structure and composition of Etheria elliptica adhesive.
Many organisms have devised unique ways in which to stick to a surface, with one notorious example being zebra mussels, which produce an adhesive that works underwater.
The majority of underwater adhesives, like that of the zebra mussel, consist entirely of organic molecules such as proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates. A few organisms, including the freshwater oyster Etheria elliptical, studied here, produce mineralized adhesives. Our work, in collaboration with David Gillikin at Union College, focused on exploring the structure and composition of the Etheria elliptica adhesive.
We found the adhesive to consist of small mineral particles (nanometer-sized) that clump together into larger crystals of varied size, shape, and orientation (orientation is shown in color in the figure with different colors representing different orientations). The amount of crystalline material within the adhesive varied in moving from the adhesive facing the outside environment to the adhesive facing the oyster’s shell, with the adhesive closest to the shell having more mineral.
The unique structure and composition of the Etheria elliptical adhesive provides important information for thinking about designing underwater adhesives in the future.