THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER UNIONOID SURVEY OF 1907

David H. Stansbery, The Ohio State University Museum of Biological Diversity, 
1315 Kinnear Rd., Columbus, OH 43212.  Stansbery.1@osu.edu  (614.263.2133) 

There have been several unionoid surveys of the Upper Mississippi River since 
the development, near the end of the last century, of commercial uses of the 
North American river shell.  These studies provided a database for at least some 
understanding of which species were present and in what numbers at linear sites 
along the river over the last hundred years of human modification.  One of the 
earliest efforts was that of the United States Bureau of Fisheries conducted by 
Dr. Paul Bartsch during July and August of 1907.  The voucher specimens of this 
survey were, for the most part, deposited in the Smithsonian Institution's 
United States National Museum of Natural History. 

The length of the Mississippi sampled extended from just below St. Paul, 
downstream to the mouth of the Ohio at Cairo.  Several Mississippi tributaries 
as well as the lowermost Ohio and Tennessee Rivers were also included in the 
survey.  Material was obtained from both commercial shellers and the personal 
collecting of Dr. Bartsch and his crew.  The value of the unionoid of the 
Mississippi River revealed by the survey was instrumental in the construction of 
the Bureau of Fisheries Laboratory at Fairport, Iowa, to study this natural 
resource.  Perhaps incidentally, it also provided for the evaluation of the 
fauna on into the future.

Keywords:  Mississippi River, unionoids, unionoid survey, P. W. Bartsch, 
Smithsonian Institution, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Fairport Iowa Laboratory.
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