Cooperative Agreement for affiliated Partner with Great Rivers Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit

The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a Great Rivers CESU partner for research to develop and test hydrodynamically based, passive ichthyoplankton samplers for capture of downstream-drifting invasive carp eggs and larvae in rivers. Invasive carp–bighead (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) silver (H. molitrix), grass (Ctenopharyngodon idella), and black (Mylopharyngodon piceus) carp–are native to Southeast Asia and have spread throughout much of the Mississippi River Basin since their escape from private, wastewater, and aquaculture ponds in the 1980's. Technologies allowing for early detection of these species, especially evidence of natural reproduction, are needed by state and federal agencies throughout the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Basins to control the spread of invasive carp and assess risk to uninvaded waters. Invasive carp can make long-distance spawning migrations upriver from adult population fronts to uninvaded waters to spawn. As such, ichthyoplankton may be the first evidence of invasive carp in uninvaded waters