BLM-Alaska System for Mapping and Predicting Species of Concern (SOMC) & Aquatic Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM)

The full extent of fish distribution in Alaska is far from complete, with less than 50% of the 365,000 miles of streams in the state inventoried. Furthermore, increased tourism from around the globe and future development are likely to increase the risk of non-native aquatic invasive species introductions. This project is designed to complement and enhance our existing Aquatic AIM project through the addition of environmental DNA sampling. Environmental DNA collected from streams and lakes may provide sufficient information to determine fish species presence. This project would develop and test methods to determine if eDNA can detect the presence of a species of concern (SOC; e.g., resident or anadromous fish, invasive aquatics, etc) in a watershed. This effort would require the development of genetic marker profiles for species of concern in Alaska. Secondly, this project would test whether samples collected by the public could be used for eDNA sampling, thus further enhancing our understanding of fish distribution on the landscape. Lastly, this project would integrate geospatial and Earth observation data to develop species distribution models to predict SOC distributions across Alaska. This a statewide project, however, for the first year the area within the National Petroleum Reserve � Alaska (NPR-A). In subsequent years different areas will be identified based on BLM�s funding. The development of a tool that can be used to more cost effectively determine species occurrence across the landscape in Alaska is paramount to ensuring the sustained productivity of priority aquatic resources and early detection of aquatic invasive species.