THE ROLE OF AQUACULTURE IN REFUGIA CONSERVATION OF THREATENED AND ENDANGERED SPECIES

The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) San Marcos Aquatic Resources Center  (SMARC)  has been contracted for many years  to provide a refugium for petitioned, threatened, and endangered species.  One of the unique aspects of our station is that we provide refugia for a broad variety of  taxa including fish, plants, amphibians, mussels and other aquatic invertebrates.  Our current refugia contracts include the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Program (EAHCP) and several Mitigation and Conservation Memorandum Agreements, such as with  the  Magellan and Kinder Morgan pipelines .

Refugia preserve the capacity for the covered species to be re-established should a catastrophic event, such as loss of spring flow or contamination, cause a loss of the wild population or threaten its critical habitat .  These populations are vulnerable to extirpation throughout all or a significant part of their range.  Establishing a refugia requires  development and management of collection, husbandry, propagation, genetics, and reintroduction procedures . As part of the refugia program we also conduct research activities to expand knowledge of these species' biology, life history, effective reintroduction techniques, and more effective aquaculture an d animal husbandry techniques.  There is much discrepancy in the knowledge base of the species from fairly well known to almost nothing known for som e of the invertebrate species. New aquaculture techniques are being develo ped  that could be applied to similar species elsewhere in th e United States and the world. For example, we are currently studying how to meet the nutritional requirements of an aquatic beetle that grazes on biofilms through artificial diet developments of 3D printed food source s and gut microbiome analysis.

The refugia model is becoming more important and utilized across the country as increasing pressures are put on our natural resources.  Propagation of these rare species and their holding in aquaculture allow for studies by scientists that might not have a chance to interact with these species or similar  ones in th e wild.  Effective aquaculture techniques for these species can be a resource to programs that are looking to supplement habitat preservation alone or where habitat preservation may be limited.