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James Garner, a doctoral student in the College of Natural Sciences’ Department of Environmental Conservation and a fellow at the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, is part of a team led by the Connecticut River Conservancy (CRC) that recently confirmed the presence of a prehistoric fish species on the endangered list in the Connecticut River: the shortnose sturgeon. The team’s environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis found that the fish inhabits a stretch of the Connecticut River between Turners Falls and Bellows Falls, Vt./Walpole, N.H. 

Once abundant in major rivers along the East Coast, this ancient species has seen its numbers drastically decline. When considering the causes for the shortnose sturgeon’s decline, CRC – a not-for-profit whose mission is to restore and advocate for clean water, healthy habitats and resilient communities to support a diverse and thriving watershed – points to factors such as dam construction, habitat loss, and overfishing during the fish’s upstream migrations as contributors to their dwindling population.

“This study began in large part as a response to reported shortnose sturgeon sightings in the reaches of the Connecticut River upstream of the Turners Falls and Vernon dams from local, Indigenous and fisherfolk community members,” says Garner, whose expertise in eDNA techniques aided in these findings. “Our multiple positive environmental DNA detections now provide the first scientific evidence to back up these community members' reports—confirming the presence of shortnose sturgeon upstream of these dams. This collaboration highlights the invaluable role that local knowledge plays in guiding scientific inquiry and demonstrates how eDNA technology can help us monitor and protect endangered species in a non-invasive and efficient way.”

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Working with CRC’s River Steward for New Hampshire, Kate Buckman, Garner was able to use existing research and volunteer sampling to narrow down the stretches of river that should be targeted for eDNA analysis. The results from the analyzed samples verified detectable levels of shortnose sturgeon DNA at multiple locations within the reaches of the Connecticut River upstream of the Turners Falls and Vernon dams.

Garner recognizes a number of key collaborators on the UMass campus that assisted in this work, including Jeremy Andersen, research assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Conservation, who lent his ‘fish free’ lab space to the team for sample filtration and DNA extractions, the IALS Clinical Testing Center, which helped the team run dozens of samples quickly and seamlessly using their next-generation facilities, undergraduate researchers Nina Balagula and Lea Luetjens, and graduate student volunteers Julian Burgoff, a master’s student in environmental conservation, and Stefanie Farrington, a doctoral candidate in organismic and evolutionary biology.

More information about Garner’s work on this project, including links to recent media coverage of the discovery, can be found on the CNS website.