Fish species found in what were historically prairie ecosystems have been subjected to change as land cover andland use have been developed for human needs these changes have led to declines in fish…

Fish species found in what were historically prairie ecosystems have been subjected to change as land cover andland use have been developed for human needs these changes have led to declines in fish species in some areasresulting in both federal and state agencies listing as many as nine species in nebraska as either endangered, threatened, or at critical risk gathering contemporary information on the exact distributions of these speciesis time consuming and expensive thus limiting the logistical feasibility of conducting traditional fish samplingstudies at a statewide scale however, there remains a need to identify innovative techniques to address theinventory, monitoring, and research needs of small bodied, at risk, prairie stream fishes identified innebraska s state wildlife action plan using environmental DNA edna may be a useful and cost effective tool inprioritizing and identifying where target species may be found the edna approach simply detects DNA materialsloughed off by individual fish which remain in the water column to build a presence absence database for a givenlocation where the water was collected here, we propose to implement a collaborative project that integratesedna techniques from a standardized water sampling program to aid in determining the location and distribution ofstream fish species across the state of nebraska water samples will be collected at 97 sites monthly todetermine the spatial and temporal distributions of prairie fish, with a particular focus on at risk species positive results of at risk species presence based on edna analysis will be verified through fieldinvestigations if edna is a viable method for identifying the locations of these fish species, IT will enhanceour ability to more effectively monitor the fish species and communities and develop conservation strategies inaddition, the edna primers for the fish species will be made publicly available so other researchers can employthis survey technique for their own fish identification