Bioturbators (such as bivalves, worms, polychaetes), living in a coastal area, experiences frequent changes in salinity. They are often exposed to mechanical disturbances (like wave, currents, storms) forcing them to bury deeper into the sediment to get a better foothold. In nature, these stressors often occurs simultaneously. Osmotic stress negatively affects the burial activity and the physiological performances of soft shell clam, Mya arenaria; however, the mechanism behind this is still unknown. In this dataset we present the effect of different salinity regime on the burial activity of Mya arenaria, as well as the combined effect of osmotic stress and repeated burrowing on the succinate dehydrogenase and ATPase activity in foot muscle of Mya arenaria.

We measured the activity of SDH and ATPase in the foot muscle of Mya arenaria by staining the foot cross-section with specific dye (nitroblue tetrazolium and cobalt chloride for SDH and ATPase, respectively). The percentage of area stained in the foot cross-section is equivalent to the activity of these enzymes.