Mussels like these plain pocketbooks will help answer the question: "What do mussels eat?"

Genoa National Fish Hatchery (NFH) and the Upper Midwest Environmental Science Center (UMESC) have had a long standing partnership that has produced successful conservation efforts and multiple research projects.  The two offices are constantly targeting science support projects aimed at addressing critical research that will enhance the hatcheries ability to rear healthier fish and mussels.  At the same time, Genoa’s ability to culture sub-adult mussels (length > 10 mm) has proven beneficial to UMESC’s in several research projects.  Currently Michelle Bartsch from UMESC is conducting a research project in which she hopes to determine the riverine diets of freshwater mussels.  The 120 mussels for this project were provided by the hatchery to UMESC after being cultured for up to three summers in cages.  Bartsch plans to place multiple baskets containing mussels in the St. Croix River where she will allow the mussels to filter food from the river, and then compare tissue samples to water samples to narrow down the list of food items the mussels are consuming.  As zebra mussels continue to spread throughout the Mississippi River system suitable mussel culture cage locations may become harder to find.  The knowledge gained from Bartsch’s study might help develop a commercial diet that one day might make rearing mussels in closed environments such as the hatchery as healthy as mussels cultured in the river.