The ovate clubshell occurs in riffles, runs, and shoals of small creeks to large rivers, usually in sand and gravel substrates.

Many freshwater mussels spend the majority of their life sedentary and filter feeding on the bottom of rivers and streams. Sometimes they will bury into the sediment, only revealing a small portion of their aperture, which is used for gas exchange and filter feeding. 

The ovate clubshell is a small to medium-sized mussel reaching lengths up to 60 mm. The shell is oval to elliptical in shape, and has nearly terminal, inflated umbos. The posterior ridge is well developed, broadly rounded, and often concave. The posterior slope is produced well beyond the posterior ridge.

Periostracum color varies from yellow to dark brown, and occasionally has broad green rays that may cover most of the umbo and posterior ridge. The nacre is white to bluish white.

Freshwater mussels live an interesting multi-stage life cycle which depends upon a fish host to complete. Males release sperm into the water column, to be hopefully siphoned in by the incurrent aperture of the females, where the eggs held within her gills are then fertilized. Once the fertilized eggs start to develop, the female becomes inflated, or gravid. The fertilized eggs develop into glochidia, which is the mussels larval stage. This stage requires a fish host for transformation into the juvenile stage, which sometimes requires a little coaxing by females. Glochidia are housed in packets called conglutinates and often mimic a food source of the fishes within that ecosystem to lure the fish to bite. Once the fish bites, the glochidia clamp down onto the fish, becoming encysted, and feed from the fish for several weeks until dropping off as juveniles. The host fish for glochidia of the ovate clubshell is currently unknown, but other Pleurobema spp. are known to use members of the shiner family Cyprinidae.

Gravid females of this species have been observed in June and July.

Sometimes P. perovatum can resemble P. rubellum but are usually more elongate and often more rounded posteriorly.

Although the diets of freshwater mussels are poorly understood, it is believed to consist of algae, and/or, bacteria. Some studies suggest that the diets of freshwater mussels may change throughout their life, with juveniles collecting organic materials from the substrate though pedal feeding and then developing the ability to filter feed during adulthood. Pedal feeding is a form of deposit feeding where the animal uses their muscular foot to bury into the sediment, collecting organic matter. Filter feeding is a process by which mussels feed off suspended organic material by pumping in water through their incurrent aperture and out through their excurrent apertures, capturing the particles and using them as food.