SCCTU February General Meeting

Our February General Meeting will be our State of the Chapter address followed by a New Zealand Mud Snail presentation by Nicole Flanders. The nomination committee would like to present the following candidates for election:

• Betty Bloom

• Terrie Hendrickson

• Zach Quinby

• Ford Stryker

Please send all Board nominations to president@springcreektu.org

Nicole Flanders, New Zealand Mud Snails in Spring Creek

Nicole is currently a third-year student at Penn State Altoona. She returned to school after twenty years in the railcar industry hoping to achieve her goal of a career in science. Although she started pre-medicine, she realized her passion truly lies in conservation. Outside of school, Nicole loves taking her dogs on hikes whenever possible. She enjoys kayaking, taking her UTV out on nice sunny days, and seeing how many new plants and insects she can identify. Nicole has been studying the invasive New Zealand mud snail (NZMS) population densities in Spring Creek with her mentor, Dr. Levri, for the last two years. Nicole loves being in the field, admiring our local streams' beauty and amazing biodiversity. She feel most at home splashing through the water, but also doesn't mind spending hours gathering and analyzing data in the lab. Nicole will present the data gathered as well as provide some insight into how the NZMS has been so successful and how to prevent the spread of this invasive species. She has been collecting these snails, measuring and dissecting them, counting the broods, and comparing data since the spring of 2021. Other members in her cohort are studying the effects of water chemistry on the populations as well as testing the enemy-release hypothesis. We also identified a native snail species that could be preventing the population increase of the NZMS and hope to further investigate this in the future. The population effects of the NZMS are huge on our local environment and play a role in the decline of large trophy fish like brown and rainbow trout. It is critical that we work together as nature lovers to preserve the beauty and integrity of our streams, and hopefully this presentation will help spread the word on how important it is to control the spread of this invasive species.