Sep. 11, 2013 — Researchers have transported two endangered freshwater mussel species from Pennsylvania to Illinois in an attempt to re-establish their populations in the western part of the Ohio River Basin.
The team of biologists, led by Jeremy Tiemann, of the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS), traveled to the site of a bridge-replacement project on Pennsylvania's Allegheny River to collect northern riffleshell (Epioblasma rangiana) and clubshell (Pleurobema clava) mussels. The INHS is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois.
The two mussel species historically had inhabited the Ohio River Basin, an area that stretches from Illinois to Pennsylvania and New York to Kentucky. The 2- to 3-inch-long northern riffleshells and their larger clubshell counterparts make their homes three or more inches beneath the surface of the gravel layer they live in, Tiemann said.
There are more than 30,000 individual mussels of these species living under Pennsylvania's Hunter Station Bridge. The bridge-replacement project brings with it the potential for huge losses of the already endangered species, he said.
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