Background Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the hereditary material in organisms that contains the biological instructions for building and maintaining them. The chemical structure of DNA is the same for all organisms, but differences exist in the order of the DNA building blocks, known as base pairs. Unique sequences provide a means to identify individual species and detect their presence within aquatic or terrestrial environments. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is nuclear or mitochondrial DNA that is shed from an organism into the environment. Sources of eDNA include feces, mucous, and gametes; shed skin; and carcasses. In aquatic environments, eDNA is diluted and distributed by currents and other hydrological processes....
This layer represents fundamentally suitable and unsuitable habitat for freshwater mussels in the Meramec Basin as modeled by these authors on May 17, 2017 based on spatial data ranging from 1990 to 2014. Identification of habitat characteristics associated with the presence of freshwater mussels is challenging but crucial for the conservation of this declining fauna. Most mussel species are found in multi-species assemblages suggesting that physical factors influence presence similarly across species. In lotic environments, geomorphic and hydraulic characteristics appear to be important factors for predicting mussel presence. We used maximum entropy (MaxEnt) modeling to evaluate hydrogeomorphic variables associated...
Climate change is expected to alter the distributions and community composition of stream fishes in the Great Lakes region in the 21st century, in part as a result of altered hydrological systems (stream temperature, streamflow, and habitat). Resource managers need information and tools to understand where fish species and stream habitats are expected to change under future conditions. Fish sample collections and environmental variables from multiple sources across the United States Great Lakes Basin were integrated and used to develop empirical models to predict fish species occurrence under present-day climate conditions. Random Forests models were used to predict the probability of occurrence of 13 lotic fish...
