Volunteers with the Upper Sangamon River Conservancy (USRC) have been monitoring freshwater mussels in the Mahomet, Illinois region since 2011. Beginning in 2021, USRC partnered with the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, Illinois Natural History Survey, Missouri Botanical Garden, and St. Louis Zoo to expand their monitoring efforts with grant support from the Living Earth Collaborative.

Volunteers now work alongside professional scientists to collect, tag, measure, and photograph each mussel collected at the 8 project sites.  In addition, they help collect tissue samples from species of special interest for genetic analysis.

Learn more about this project and what it is like to participate on our award-winning short film, "Mussel Grubbing: A Citizen Science Treasure Hunt."
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