Environmental Science & Ecology Professor Awarded $14,400 in Funding
Dr. Jacques Rinchard was awarded $14,400 from the Indiana Water Resources Research Center via Purdue University to evaluate potential use of fatty acids as a condition index of freshwater mussels in response to upstream environmental effects.
This project is a collaboration between Purdue University (Dr. Tomas Hook) and SUNY Brockport. In Indiana and across their range, unionid mussels have experienced drastic losses in diversity and abundance, and many extant species are considered threatened or endangered. Efforts to conserve mussel populations are currently underway by a number of agencies and institutions, but these efforts may be hindered by knowledge gaps related to basic life history, ecology, and mechanisms related to mussel population health.
Profiles of fatty acids are often directly indicative of a consumer’s diet and the habitats they occupy. In this project, we plan to assess the efficacy of using fatty acid profiles as a mechanism to evaluate mussel condition and response to upstream environmental conditions.
The award will be administered by The Research Foundation for SUNY at SUNY Brockport.