I’ll be presenting a poster at the Neobiota conference in Portugal. My topic will be some habitat modeling work conducted with European colleagues over the past few months. The purpose of the work is to inform invasion risk of the Chinese Pond Mussel (Sinanodonta woodiana) in North America. The species was first discovered to occur in North America in the Delaware Watershed, New Jersey, USA in 2010. (See picture caption for more info.) This project is made possible through a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Here is a link to the poster.
Presenting at Neobiota...
The Chinese Pond Mussel was likely introduced to North America (New Jersey, USA) in the 1970s or 1980s by a fish farming operation. While it has the potential to spread geographically and negatively impact native mussels, it remains localized and in low abundance. Our study aimed to evaluate the potential for spread using habitat models based in the species European invasive range. Photo: Holger Krisp, Wikimedia.