The U.S. Fish and wildlife service (USFWS) has determined that the recent introduction of large-scale loach(paramisgurnus dabryanus) to the california central valley is a threat to habitats that are…

The U.S. Fish and wildlife service (USFWS) has determined that the recent introduction of large-scale loach(paramisgurnus dabryanus) to the california central valley is a threat to habitats that are vital to threatenedsalmon. Large-scale loach is difficult to detect and remove because IT lives along the bottom of the water columnand IT can live in the MUD when canals or ponds dry up. Quick and complete removal is the preferred approach tomanaging invasive species, but traditional fisheries gear and survey methods may not be sensitive or preciseenough to detect such a difficult invader. To increase the efficiency and effectiveness of invasive speciesremoval efforts, the USFWS has partnered with S.P. Cramer and associates, INC., to develop a removal procedure thatcombines the sensitivity of cutting-edge environmental DNA techniques (also known as edna) with traditionaltrapping methods. This hybrid approach will be used to detect and remove large-scale loach in the SAN luiswildlife refuge. Developing this method will occur in two steps. The first step is to perform an experiment tocalibrate the edna methodology. The results will provide context to help interpret edna samples. We will also make maps of the edna results to determine the location of any large-scale loach edna hot-spots across the landscape. The edna distribution maps will allow the USFWS to strategically target their removal efforts across a larger landscape. The goal of this study is to couple the sensitivity of molecular techniques with physical invasive species removal to develop a protocol that can be applied to current and future early detection and eradication efforts. These new methods can also be applied to other invasive species in the future.