Impacts of dreissenid mussels (Dreissena spp.) on Great Lakes ecosystems are well documented, and a better understanding of mechanisms that cause variation in dreissenid abundance is needed. An outstanding question is how much dreissenid biomass is consumed by fish predation. A significant difficulty for investigating dreissenid consumption by fish is that dreissenids in stomachs are often a mix of indigestible shell and flesh, which can bias bioenergetics models and estimates of daily ration. Here, we develop an analysis to convert crushed shell and flesh mixtures found in fish diets to dry weight of digestible dreissenid flesh. Quagga Dreissena rostiformis bugensis and zebra Dreissena polymorpha mussels were used in separate dry weight analyses simulating stomach contents ranging from individual mussels to aggregates of each species. A species-specific dry weight relationship was observed when comparing flesh-only dry weight to total dry weight (shell + flesh) for individual dreissenid but not for aggregates. Thus, the model is applicable in providing more precise estimates of dreissenid flesh dry weight in fish diets.

藻类贻贝（Dreissena spp。）对五大湖地区生态系统的影响已得到充分记录，因此需要对引起藻类丰富度变化的机制有更好的了解。一个悬而未决的问题是鱼类捕食消耗了多少类杜鹃花生物量。研究鱼类食用类杜鹃花的一个主要困难是，胃中的类杜鹃花通常是不易消化的壳和肉的混合物，这可能会使生物能模型和日粮估计值产生偏差。在这里，我们进行了一项分析，将鱼类饮食中发现的碎壳和果肉混合物转化为可消化的鹅掌sen肉的干重。Quagga Dreissena rostiformis bugensis和斑马Dreissena polymorpha贻贝用于单独的干重分析，模拟从单个贻贝到每种物种的聚集体的胃内容物。当比较单个果皮中的果肉干重与总干重（壳+肉）而不是骨料时，观察到物种特异性的干重关系。因此，该模型可用于提供鱼饲料中的杜鹃花肉干重的更精确估计。