A Riverscape Genetic Analysis of Pallid Sturgeon in the Lower Missouri and Middle Mississippi Rivers

The pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1990.  One component of the recovery strategy was the establishment of a conservation propagation program to preserve existing species diversity and prevent the short-term threat of local extirpation.  The conservation propagation plan divides the range of the pallid sturgeon into four geographic management units.  The propagation program relies on collection of wild brood fish which are artificially propagated to produce multiple families of offspring for population augmentation purposes.  Hatchery produced and reared progeny are stocked exclusively into the management unit from which their parents were collected.  The boundaries of the management units were not based wholly on empirically derived genetic data or evidence of distinct pallid sturgeon genetic structuring, and therefore the success of current propagation practices in preserving the genetic structure of the remnant populations is unknown. It is imperative to the recovery program to understand genetic structure of pallid sturgeon across the landscape.  A “Rivescape Genetics” approach will provide the data necessary to: 1) visualize and understand pallid sturgeon genetic structuring in a riverscape context and 2) develop information to evaluate pallid sturgeon management units.  Identification of spatial genetic patterns requires georeferencing the genetic data collected from individuals at known geographical locations.  Pertinent biological and genetic data for individual pallid sturgeon will be obtained, compiled into a relational database and analyzed within a geospatial framework.  The riverscape genetics approach will allow the characterization of genetic structure not attainable using traditional genetic methods.