While wildlife species do not respect political boundaries, conservation planning and implementation is often restricted by them. Thus, regionally rare species can be placed in the unenviable position of not being prioritized by any jurisdiction that they inhabit due to competition for scarce conservation resources. A regional conservation framework will enable states to cooperate toward common goals and share the costs and accomplishments of regionally conserving at risk species. However, the development of a regional conservation framework is inhibited by patchy species occurrence data. These data gaps can be informed by species distribution models. This project will compile available mussel data, develop species distribution models, and create a regional conservation framework based on those models.
