Using Maxent to Generate a Fundamental Niche Model for Diverse Mussel Assemblages within the Northeastern Ozark Region of Missouri

State-wide mussel surveys have documented declines in mussel diversity in the Ozark region, including the Meramec River basin, a hotspot of mussel diversity in the Midwestern United States.  Pinpointing causes of these declines and where threats cause the most risk to populations is an ongoing challenge for mitigating mussel declines.   We aim to identify the basic habitat requirements necessary to support diverse mussel communities from a broad, watershed scale perspective. We generate a fundamental niche model using available landscape scale datasets to identify physical habitat requirements that support diverse aggregations of mussels. We employ MaxEnt to relate environmental variables related to hydrology and hydraulics of in-stream and near-stream hydro-geomorphic processes to species-rich mussel concentrations in the basin. We identify locations throughout the Meramec Basin that provide the fundamental characteristics that allow establishment of species-rich mussel assemblages. The model predictions will be 1) validated in the field, 2) used to identify additional biotic and abiotic limiting factors for mussels, and 3) guide site-selection for a reach-scale study of habitat requirements. The results of this project improve our basic understanding of the habitat needs of freshwater mussels and the mechanisms leading to their decline, providing key information to guide state-wide mussel conservation.