A Troy University biologist and his students have joined with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and PowerSouth to study the effects of habitat change on federally-listed species of mussel.

Gantt Lake in Andalusia holds the largest known population of the fusconaia escambia, or the narrow pigtoe mussel. Work required to the infratstructure on Gantt Lake meant the water levels would be dropped in the area.

For Jonathan Miller, a Troy University lecturer in biology, this was the perfect time to study and also try and relocate many of these endangered mussels.

“Whenever they draw down these reservoirs, they basically put a large effort toward trying to find the federally-listed species in addition to many state-listed species that are in here,” Miller said.

“In this lake, I think there were over 3,800 mussels of the federally-listed species. We took measurement data on all of those, put individualized tags on those so future research can be done on them.”

To learn more about the research, watch the video link below.