Hartman, J.H., A.E. Rosenberger, K.N. Key, and G. Lindner. 2023. Assessing potential habitat for freshwater mussels by transferring a habitat suitability model within the Ozark Ecoregion, Missouri. Submitted to Freshwater Mollusk Biology and Conservation
Abstract
The freshwater mussel fauna of the United States, while extraordinarily rich, has the highest imperilment rate of any group of organisms. However, environmental factors that allow for their establishment and persistence in large, multispecies mussel beds remain unknown. Riverscape-scale (spatially and longitudinally continuous) instream correlates of large, hydrogeomorphic features have been used successfully in predicting suitable habitat for the Meramec Basin in the Ozark Ecoregion in Missouri. We tested the transferability of this habitat suitability model in 2 other rivers in the Ozark ecoregion that have similar hydrogeomorphic variables that may be influencing mussel distributions, in the absence of other limiting factors such as human disturbance. We tested 3 different model transferability techniques that represent different levels of dependence on the original Meramec habitat suitability model. The best fit models for each river were produced by the transferability technique with the least dependence on the original model, and instead, relied on adapting and customizing each model to each individual river. This comparative study demonstrates the influence of the range of hydrogeomorphic characteristics within the river system on the range of characteristics identified as suitable habitat. This study emphasizes the need for more wide-spread, available, and ecologically meaningful riverscape-scale data in habitat modeling with the understanding that levels of importance and range of hydrogeomorphic characteristics will vary across drainages and instream processes.