Andrew Altieri, a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University, joins us in this month’s episode of Field Talk to discuss his work examining hypoxic marine systems, known as dead zones. Altieri studies a community of clams and mussels – collectively known as bivalves – in Narragansett Bay, off the coast of Providence, Rhode Island. His paper in the October issue of Ecology shows that one species of bivalve, the quahog, can benefit from reduced oxygen content in the water. The resulting boom in quahog populations has important implications for ecosystem services.