Effects of habitat suitability on the survival of relocated freshwater mussels

Freshwater musselsare often relocatedfrom existing beds for both conservation and management reasons. In this study, we empirically tested whether the habitattype at the destination site was important in predicting the success of mussel relocation. In 1993, four species of freshwater musselswere relocatedin the Apalachicola River in Florida, into three distinct habitattypes: stable sand, limestone/sand and cobble. The conditional probabilityof survival of relocated musselsvaried by species and habitat. Two species were considered habitatspecialists, one species was considered a habitatgeneralist and recovery rates for the fourth species were too low to assess habitatpreferences. We show empirically that microhabitat is important in the survival of relocated musselsand that the habitat-specific criteria for relocationis species specific. These results suggest that survival of relocated musselscan be enhanced if species-specific site selection criteria are developed using quantitative information. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.