Unionoid mussel

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) is frequently queried regarding the general status of endangered and threatened mussels in Missouri, a question that will remain incompletely answered until a sufficiently rigorous and comprehensive assessment and monitoring framework is implemented in Missouri. This implementation is complicated by the diverse nature of Missouri’s mussel fauna and the limited personnel devoted to its conservation and assessment. A Conservation Assessment of Missouri’s fauna will allow for statewide, strategic, and spatially explicit monitoring that maximizes probability of detection of population and/or distributional changes in mussel species, while minimizing costs and man-hours dedicated to monitoring programs. The long-term goal is to give rise to a decision support monitoring framework specifically designed to maximize the probability of detecting species or assemblage expansions or declines in key areas of the state that are the strongholds of mussel diversity, followed by a comprehensive conservation assessment of mussels in the state, identified as High Priority Objectives (1.3, 2.1, and 2.2) in the MDC Statewide Mussel Plan.