This year is the 5th year of my 10-year freshwater mussel monitoring project. This is an effort to collect, identify, tag, measure, and photograph the diverse group of mussels (see photos above with 4 or 5 species in each tray) living in the Sangamon River in Illinois. While I call it “my” project, there are many people who can lay some claim to this work. First off, there are the co-leads with me on the project: Bruce and Sarah. The three of us are a great team, each providing a unique set of skills to make this project interesting, fun, and exciting. Then we have the volunteers who help us with our field monitoring days. These are the events that we’ve shared here during several late summer posts. While we have a strong core group of repeat volunteers, we also continue to bring in large numbers of new volunteers each year!
Our volunteers are mostly kids, young adults, families, and retirees, mostly from areas around Urbana/Champaign. They commit to spending the day with us, hunting for hidden treasures in the water. They are participating in community science: scientific research that involves the local, non-scientific community in the project planning, goal setting, data collection, data analysis, and/or presentation of results. Enjoy the photos above and below of a few of the community scientists who contributed this year!
Below, Sarah is teaching some new volunteers how to tag mussel shells.
I can’t let the volunteers have all the fun! I enjoy getting in the river and digging through the sediments by hand, searching for mussels. I’ve gotten better at this over the years of the project. I also help with processing the collected mussels, sometimes tagging them, other times measuring them, and rarely by taking the photos….
The photo stations have become Hogan’s primary focus during our monitoring events. This is a great job for him since he prefers to stay dry!
Danelle