Investigation of stressors on freshwater mussel populations

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The greatest diversity of freshwater mussels on the planet is found in North America; unfortunately, they are one of the most imperiled group of organisms. For example, the southern portion of the province of Ontario contains 42 of the 53 freshwater mussel species found in Canada, and 13 of these species are classified as threatened or endangered. The traditional approach to monitoring freshwater mussel populations is resource and labour intensive (e.g., timed searches and quadrat survey). It can also take 5 to 10 years before the significant decline of a population is identified. For example, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans monitor freshwater mussel populations classified as at risk of extinction, but due to the large amount of resources required to monitor one species and the number of imperiled mussel species, they are only able to assess populations at a specific site on a five-year rotation. This generates the need for a more rapid non-lethal diagnostic tool to assess the health of a population of at-risk freshwater mussel species. Consequently, the ultimate research question for my program of study is whether changes in the metabolome will be an effective non-lethal measure of stress within freshwater mussel populations. The three short-term objectives of my research program focus on understanding factors that contribute to variation in the hemolymph metabolome of laboratory-cultured and wild populations. ******1) Investigate the variation in the metabolome present in the hemolymph of freshwater mussel species native to Canada******2) Investigate changes in the hemolymph metabolome of freshwater mussel species under various types of stressors.******3) Investigate the variation in the hemolymph metabolome of wild freshwater mussel species in the Great Lakes basin of Ontario.******Understanding basic drivers of variation in the metabolome is critical to characterizing the statistical power of using the metabolome as an indicator of stress in a freshwater mussel population. Hemolymph has been chosen as the target tissue because the volume required for metabolomic analyses can be removed without having an adverse effect on the individual mussel. The development of a non-lethal endpoint would allow for a direct assessment of stressors on threatened and endangered freshwater mussel species without having an impact on natural populations. ******The long-term objective is the apply what we have learnt accomplishing these three short-term objectives to expand the use of metabolomic analyses of hemolymph to investigate the effect of habitat alteration (e.g., temperature, nutrient inputs, total suspended solids, etc.) and microbiological threats on the health of freshwater mussels. The hope is that we can develop a diagnostic tool that will allow us to non-lethally collect data on the health of endangered populations, which could then aid in the development and monitoring of recovery and reintroduction plans.