Early Detection Surveys for Quagga and Zebra Mussels

Portland State University (PSU) staff will perform dreissenid mussel surveys at high-priority water bodies in the Columbia River Basin (CRB). PSU has established a list of high-risk bodies of water within the CRB. 

With this Financial Assistance agreement PSU will:

• Coordinate with relevant agencies to choose water bodies from this list for sampling. 
• Monitor for shelled mussel life stages (veliger, juvenile, and adult mussels) using visual and tactile methods and a variety of equipment to sample different habitats as appropriate for each habitat. 

Methods to be used include shoreline walks, turning over rocks, picking up and inspecting submerged objects, and feeling along the undersides of dock floats, buoys, and other floating structures.

Sampling Activities in this project will include: 

• Pilings, concrete walls and other submerged surfaces will be sampled with a surface scraper.
• Aquatic plants will be sampled with a thatch plant rake.
• The benthic area will be sampled using a sediment dredge and or by deploying and inspecting artificial settlement substrates. 
• Adult samples will be examined in the field.
• PSU crews will collect plankton samples with 64-micron plankton net, either from a boat or convenient shore site. 
• Plankton tows at each sampling location will be composited in the field, preserves and transported to the laboratory for microscopic examination. 
• Samples for eDNA analysis will also be collected and analyzed by PSU.  Field equipment will be decontaminated at the site to prevent transfer of organisms and genetic material within and between systems and samples. 

  This grant request was originally submitted to the Department of the Interior, through the Western Governors Association, as part of the Department’s Invasive Mussels Initiative.