Event Title
Location
Parker-Reed, SSWAC
Start Date
1-5-2014 9:00 AM
End Date
1-5-2014 10:00 AM
Project Type
Poster
Description
Maine has several freshwater snails but one is found only within the state, a type of pond snail called Stagnicola mighelsi. Previous work shows that it has been lost at half of the lakes in its Fish River Lakes stronghold, and that it survives only in very big and remote lakes. However, there are 100 year-old reports from other watersheds, and possibly undiscovered populations. Learning about this snail and the other snails we will identify can help us protect a special part of Maines wildlife, and learn about the health of our lakes and rivers. Few people know or care about the survival of these animals - even though they help to keep lakes clear of algae and are important in the wildlife food chain. Our goal was to find the complete range of this snail, and to find out what environmental factors are correlated with surviving populations. We checked 8 lakes and rivers, identified all of their freshwater snails, and reported on water chemistry and lakeshore development. We used the crowdsourcing website experiment.com to fund our project. We are grateful to the Colby Biology Department for their donation to this project!
Sponsoring Department
Colby College. Biology Dept.
CLAS Field of Study
Natural Sciences
Event Website
http://www.colby.edu/clas
ID
876
Included in
Discovering Maine's Own Freshwater Snail
Parker-Reed, SSWAC
Maine has several freshwater snails but one is found only within the state, a type of pond snail called Stagnicola mighelsi. Previous work shows that it has been lost at half of the lakes in its Fish River Lakes stronghold, and that it survives only in very big and remote lakes. However, there are 100 year-old reports from other watersheds, and possibly undiscovered populations. Learning about this snail and the other snails we will identify can help us protect a special part of Maines wildlife, and learn about the health of our lakes and rivers. Few people know or care about the survival of these animals - even though they help to keep lakes clear of algae and are important in the wildlife food chain. Our goal was to find the complete range of this snail, and to find out what environmental factors are correlated with surviving populations. We checked 8 lakes and rivers, identified all of their freshwater snails, and reported on water chemistry and lakeshore development. We used the crowdsourcing website experiment.com to fund our project. We are grateful to the Colby Biology Department for their donation to this project!
https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2014/program/143