Effects of habitat suitability on the survival of relocated freshwater mussels

Abstract

Freshwater mussels are often relocated from existing beds for both conservation and management reasons. In this study, we empirically tested whether the habitat type at the destination site was important in predicting the success of mussel relocation. In 1993, four species of freshwater mussels were relocated in the Apalachicola River in Florida, into three distinct habitat types: stable sand, limestone/sand and cobble. The conditional probability of survival of relocated mussels varied by species and habitat. Two species were considered habitat specialists, one species was considered a habitat generalist and recovery rates for the fourth species were too low to assess habitat preferences. We show empirically that microhabitat is important in the survival of relocated mussels and that the habitat‐specific criteria for relocation is species specific. These results suggest that survival of relocated mussels can be enhanced if species‐specific site selection criteria are developed using quantitative information. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dispersal and mortality of translocated thick‐shelled river mussel Unio crassus Philipsson, 1788 adults revealed by radio tracking

“…In mussels, movement is commonly viewed as a simple reaction to changes in water level, although reproduction has been suggested as having an influence (Schwalb & Pusch, ). Mussel movements, noted as small scale (Aldridge, ) or erratic (Amyot & Downing, ; Balfour & Smock, ), are usually treated as a source of error in estimates of recovery rates (Hamilton, Brim Box, & Dorazio, ) or in monitoring (Peck et al, ), or are attributed to habitat features (Dunn, Sietman, & Kelner, ). The extent to which active horizontal movements of individuals can explain the distribution of mussels within a channel, and also their disappearance from translocation sites, remains an open question; nevertheless, in the case of U. crassus active habitat selection has already been proposed (Zając & Zając, ).…”

Effects of translocation on survival and growth of freshwater mussels within a West Gulf Coastal Plain river system

“…Despite its frequent use, empirical support for translocation is fairly limited (Cope & Waller, 1995); and consequently, some conservation scientists question the usefulness of mussel translocation (Haag & Williams, 2014). However, the limited success in previous mussel translocations can be attributed to biased mark-recapture techniques (Meador, Peterson, & Wisniewski, 2011;Villella, Smith, & Lemarié, 2004), the inability to identify suitable mussel habitat (Cope et al, 2003;Dunn, Sietman, & Kelner, 1999;Hamilton, Brim Box, & Dorasio, 1997) and inadequate handling and transport procedures (Dunn et al, 1999;Waller, Gutreuter, & Rach, 1999;Yusufzai, Singh, & Shirdhankar, 2010). In addition to these methodological problems, relatively little attention has been given towards assessing whether translocation affects physiological health, growth and reproductive success (Bolden & Brown, 2002;Kesler, Newton, & Green, 2007;Newton et al, 2001;Peck, 2010;Peck et al, 2014;Roznere, Watters, Wolfe, & Daly, 2017), which can have population-level consequences.…”

An Evaluation of Streamflow Augmentation as a Short-Term Freshwater Mussel Conservation Strategy

“…Estimated apparent survival between primary sampling occasions was high among all species and comparable with those observed in similar studies (89%, Hamilton et al ., ; 84%, Villella et al ., ; 75–98%, Meador et al ., ; 49–58%, Matter et al ., ; and 89–99%, Wisniewski et al ., ). Apparent survival of mussels in Apalachicola River, Florida, was attributed to microhabitat preferences among species with high species survival occurring in suitable habitats (Hamilton et al ., ). Our study reaches encompassed a 110‐m length of Spring Creek having homogenous sand substrate but variable macrohabitats consisting of predominantly glide habitat in the lower augmented reach and predominantly pool habitat in the control reach.…”