[Narrator] This program is supported by grants from The Solon and Martha Dixon Foundation, The Steiner Foundation, and the Alabama Wildlife Federation, working for wildlife since 1935.

"Discovering Alabama" is a production of the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

(water flowing) (water rippling) -(birds singing) -(water rippling) (waterfall whooshing) (water churning) Alabama's abundance of fresh water has been featured in many "Discovering Alabama" programs during our 40 years on public television.

And indeed, Alabama is blessed with the wonder of fresh water.

With over 130,000 miles of rivers and streams and with countless lakes, all providing for plentiful community water supplies, limitless recreational opportunities, and for the growth and vitality of our economy.

But in this episode of "Discovering Alabama," we're gonna look more closely at the natural diversity of life associated with our fresh waters.

I'm Doug Phillips.

Join me as we hear from leading experts on this topic.

We'll visit with biologists who study some of the most interesting creatures that live in our waters.

And we'll consider some of the potential threats to the future of Alabama's fresh waters.

(soothing piano music) This program is about a land unknown to many people.

A land that in many ways has maintained its native natural wonders.

A place of bountiful backcountry, forests, streams, and wildlife more diverse than can be found in much of the inhabited world.

Come along with me as we explore the wild wonders of this land.

Come along as we discover Alabama.

Welcome to "Discovering Alabama," and welcome to a celebration of Alabama's marvelous world of freshwater life.

In fact, the state's waters support so many different kinds of life that top experts recognize Alabama as one of the most biologically diverse regions in the nation.

Here in the Southeastern United States, especially Alabama, we have the greatest concentration of aquatic animals anywhere in the world in a temperate environment.

There are a whole suite of fishes, mussels, snails, plants that are found nowhere else in the world but in Alabama.

Essentially Alabama has so much biological diversity because the state has so much habitat diversity.

And when you ask how Alabama got to be so rich with natural habitats, well, in addition to our temperate climate, it all traces back to Alabama's great geologic and physiographic diversity.

-(bird cawing) -(soft mellow music) The geological map of Alabama portrays this vividly, giving us an impressive portrait of the state's varied geology and revealing the underlying basis for the state's many landforms and watersheds, and myriad ecosystems' flora and fauna.

So, when we add all this up, well, we could end this show right here with the resounding conclusion that Alabama's abundance of fresh water makes our state truly a special part of the grand creation.

-(soft mellow music) -(engine humming) Of course, for many of us, the most appealing thing about our fresh waters is the familiar fun stuff we do on the water.

-(water sloshing) -(soft mellow music) But let's not overlook a whole dimension of the creation that dwells within these waters.

A world of amazing aquatic species that are often less familiar to us.

Come along as we explore the lives of several of these animals, beginning with one that's sort of familiar maybe to some of us, depending upon your perspective.

Most people say, "Crayfish?

We call 'em crawdads where I come from, or crawfish.

What's the difference?"

There is none.

A gentleman once told me he had researched the subject, and he said in the literature crawfish is probably the most practical use, or the earliest use, crawfish is probably correct.

Our agreement was that they're crayfish if we're studying 'em, crawfish if we're eating 'em, and crawdads if we're fishing with 'em.

As with so many aquatic organisms, the Southeastern United States is the hotspot in North America, and crayfish are no exception.

We have 100 species that are recognized.

And I strongly suspect that once more splitting of taxonomy is done, and so there's some peripheral species that are found in other states immediately around Alabama with no reason not to be in Alabama, we just hadn't confirmed 'em yet.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were 120 species, maybe more.

So, we're here doing research because there's not as much research as needed for these primary burrowers.

We still don't know a whole lot about their life history.

We don't understand fully what habitat needs they may have.

And so, the more work we can do to help answer those questions, the better position we'll be to be able to issue management recommendations for those species.

And specifically, the species that we're looking for today, or that is known from this area, that is a species of concern in Alabama.

It is only known from this specific watershed.

So, once you dig down and start feeling the soil become a lot more moist, you know, you can see here that soil that I just dug up, it's full of water.

Then you know you're at the shallow water table.

And so, these primary burrowing crawfish, they need the water table because that is their source of water to be able to essentially moisten their gills, or keep their gills wet enough to be able to survive.

'Cause that's how they breathe.

As I'm feeling right now, you actually are able to get the species that you're targeting.

So, I can feel this individual in the mud, and I'm gonna slowly and carefully bring them out.

What I've done is after I feel 'em kind of tickling me with the claws, then I will cup them with my hand without disturbing them as much as you can.

And then you see what species you might have.

This is our Celestial Crayfish.

I think my favorite part about working with the burrowing crayfish is because they are so cryptic and so secretive.

There's still a huge research gap.

The other thing I love about crayfish in general is that they connect us to the bigger picture of water resource management in Alabama.

And by studying these animals, that helps give us that glimpse of the window that they have into that world.

And that helps us better understand where water fits into the big picture.

'Cause as Alabamians, we have to make sure we have that clean water and we have access to water.

So, the bigger picture of water management in the state gives us that bigger purpose for research at this level.

So, to see at the grassroots how it all connects with people, with science, with society, and how crayfish can be used is sort of that gateway to be able to get people thinking about how important, not only their landscapes are, but how important water is.

And how we need to make sure we do all we can to help conserve and preserve our incredible resource.

So, it's crawdads if you fish with 'em, crawfish if you eat them, and crayfish if you study them.

Well, one aquatic creature that doesn't always get its due respect are the aquatic insects.

(playful instrumental music) -(bird squawking) -(insects chirring) What's the role of aquatic insects in freshwater ecosystems?

Well, they're really important as sort of intermediate players in food webs.

So, they'll feed on organic particles and other insect prey and algae that grows on rock surfaces.

And then there are top predators that feed on insects such as many of our fishes.

And aquatic insects themselves are used by many agencies, just about every state agency in the United States, to act as indicators of water quality.

So, if you have high levels of diversity of aquatic insects, that generally indicates that you have a healthy aquatic system.

-(birds chirping) -(air swooshing) There are a number of different freshwater insects that people are gonna be familiar with, like the dragonflies.

Like, all the dragonflies have aquatic larvae.

So, everyone's seen dragonflies, but most people probably haven't seen the larvae.

Now, larvae are these crazy predators.

They look like aliens if you're not familiar with dragonflies as larvae, they're very strange.

They have this extensible mouth part that they use to capture prey.

Other groups that people probably have heard of are the mayflies, and they are all aquatic.

And we have 100-plus species of mayflies here in Alabama.

We have the caddisflies.

We have a dominance of what we call microcaddisflies.

These little tiny caddisflies that are probably just about two or three millimeters long, about a quarter of an inch or less, as adults and as larvae.

We have stoneflies, lots and lots of aquatic true flies that are aquatic as larvae, the two-wing flies, mosquitoes and crane flies.

-(bird tweeting) -(insects chirring) There's one order, the Megaloptera, that most people are not gonna be familiar with here in Alabama or elsewhere because it's a very small order.

And they're really interesting.

The larvae are known as hellgrammites.

So, the smallmouth bass fishermen will know what these animals are, but they're probably less familiar with the adults.

And here are two adult males of the hellgrammite that are known as the dobsonfly.

And the males are really spectacular, and they have these really long mandibles that they apparently use to spar with one another for access to mates.

They look like something that you'd get down at the Amazon.

Aquatic insects might not always be the big attention getter, but there's a creature that will definitely grab your attention should you have the rare experience of encountering one.

If you're swimming in lakes and ponds in Alabama you've probably been swimming with an amphiuma if it's in the Coastal Plains of Alabama.

But you wouldn't see them 'cause they're hiding and burrowing down in the mucky substrate.

I like to ask kids, "Have you ever been in a pond and you felt the mud squish under your toes?"

That's where the amphiuma likes to live.

So, amphiumas are aquatic salamanders that are native to Alabama.

There's three different types of amphiumas.

The one-toed, which is restricted to the southern part of Alabama, is of the most concern.

And then we have the two-toed amphiuma, which is pretty widespread and more common.

And then there's also the three-toed amphiuma, which is also restricted to more of a western range.

So, amphiumas are nocturnal, and they're also carnivores.

They're very opportunistic, hunting at night for anything that they can fit in their mouth.

Their favorite is crayfish.

And they'll even hunt the crayfish burrows looking for crayfish.

They can come out of the water.

They'll hunt around the water's edge in the vegetation.

They'll hunt down into the bottom of the pond or lake, and they will even move in between different locations.

So, if they're going from one pond to another, they'll wait for a nice rainy night and be able to travel across land.

They don't use their four limbs very well, but they can use them for balance.

But they move in a serpentine pattern to be able to move across land.

They have a superpower, which is super slime.

Makes them really hard to hang on to.

And they can use that super slime to create a cocoon for themselves.

So, if their pond is drying up, they can create this gooey cocoon to live inside and keep themselves hydrated until water returns to their pond.

And while they're in this state, they can go up to a year without eating anything.

So, they have a lot of different survival techniques.

They have very small eyes that can detect just light mostly.

What's really cool about them is they have a lateral line system like fish do, so they can detect vibrations in the water.

And they also have a really good sense of smell.

So, they use that lateral line system and their sense of smell to be able to hunt for prey.

They have a pretty ferocious bite, although as long as you're leaving them alone they shouldn't try to bite you.

But they're really hard to hang on to because of that super slime, so catching them is pretty difficult.

I wouldn't want to get bitten by one from what I've heard from other people.

But you're safe as long as you're not trying to wrestle them.

(bird warbling) For decades, one aquatic animal that was a major source of food for Native Americans were the freshwater mussels.

Historically, large populations of mussels were widespread across the state.

In the past 100 years or so though, environmental impacts, environmental changes have taken a big toll on the populations, prompting efforts to try and recover species that are in worse decline.

(water churning) When you just look at the freshwater mussels that are found here in Alabama, we have about 183 species, and some of these species are endemic to the state.

So, meaning they're found nowhere else on the planet.

(mussel shells clattering) Since these animals are filter feeders, they remove an extraordinary amount of material out of the water column.

Most people don't know about this, but if you read the historic accounts of our rivers, pre-industrialization, you could see in the river, in the Black Warrior River or in the Tennessee River, in the Cahaba River, in deeper sections of it you could see 10 to 15 feet.

You had that kind of transmission because on the bottom were millions, if not billions, of freshwater mussels that were processing the entire volume of the river several times.

And that improved the diversity of all of the other species, along with those mussels.

And it led to better water quality.

Basically, the take-home message is, they make our Southeastern rivers function like Southeastern rivers.

(water rushing) So, if you can do the mollusk restoration, you can do the fish restoration, and the amphibian restoration, and the turtle restorations.

So, that's really the reason why you start literally at the bottom and kind of work your way up the food chain.

So, how do you go about recovering such an animal that's a bottom dweller and lives its life essentially in a small location?

Well, interestingly, mussels have a special technique to ensure their propagation and distribution across their range.

(water trickling) And in this room is where we begin the culture process for freshwater mussels.

One of the things we do here is we actually make the larvae from a mussel that we're trying to propagate with the appropriate host fish.

What we've done is we've collected these female freshwater mussels, and we've returned them back to the facility to infest their larvae onto these host fish.

So, we actually will remove, with this species, we can actually remove the larvae safely from the female and place them directly on the host fish.

And there they will stay for a period of three to five weeks.

Once they transform off of that fish, they are then juvenile mussels and we can begin the culture process for those species.

(light calm music) We're using these animals and the restoration efforts as a gateway to get others to think more about those watershed resources that impact their own communities.

So, we can basically, for more or less a better phrase, you can put a face in every drainage.

(water splattering) And the efforts there are twofold.

One, we answer some basic conservation needs for the species.

So, whether that's, you know, that would be under the Endangered Species Act.

But we're also, at the same time, you're doing watershed improvement efforts.

And there are other groups that we work with that take care of that phase of the program.

And that phase is just as critical as anything that we do.

And in fact, we couldn't work without that kind of participation at the watershed level.

We're here today in Springville, Alabama at the Big Canoe Creek site to release 330 Coosa moccasinshell mussels that were raised at the Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center in Marion, Alabama.

These mussels have been raised.

At about two years old, they're ready to be released.

We're releasing these mussels to help the population.

They're endangered, we're trying to increase the numbers.

And so, we're gonna release these today but also monitor some mussels that were released last year.

All these mussels they released last year had PIT tags on 'em so they can locate 'em.

The same species were released last year, Coosa moccasinshell, and the Canoe Creek clubshell mussel, which is also endangered, were released.

They're gonna be monitoring those mussels as well.

Alabama's fresh waters are today the subject of important scientific study by a number of research and academic institutions, including Auburn University's longstanding Water Resources Center.

And more recently, the University of Alabama's Center for Freshwater Studies.

(water burbling) Among those things we do is we sample what's living on the bottom of the stream, what's making up the food for all the organisms that live out there, you know?

Where are crayfish and the fish getting all that food to sort of sustain their growth and so they can reproduce, and that we can all go out there and catch 'em.

And so, what I'm gonna show you today is something called an automated microscope.

It's called FlowCam, is the name of the instrument.

And what it allows us to do is sample what's in the water column, or what's grown on the bed, and sort of separate it all down to the little cells that are living there.

And that is what a lot of the insects and a lot of the invertebrates are eating that then feeds the fish.

And so, what's nice about this is what we would typically do is do this by microscope, and it would take hours to sit there and take images and look at these things.

And now with the help of AI and some other assisting tools, we can do this in a matter of minutes.

So, it comes up with the small stuff first.

But if I flip that around, you can start to see now, probably tilt this your way just a little bit.

All right, we can start to see some of these larger things that are just aggregated together.

But we'll see a few cells, like this guy over here and this one here, that are clearly live singular diatoms, which are tiny species of algae, types of algae.

And those are particularly yummy types of food for things, right?

And so, a lot of the production, a lot of the activity, a lot of the things we really love about our streams and rivers with respect to the organisms we find out there, this is where the food starts.

This is where the photosynthesis is.

This is where all the food is sort of built to sustain those other things.

In the end what we use this all for is a way to sort of diagnose and characterize the health of the streams and rivers across the state.

So, much like when you go to the doctor and they pull a blood sample, and they analyze it for various, you know, cholesterol and sugar content, and a variety of things like that.

And they use that to diagnose how you're doing.

And it's not necessarily just in the blood, of course, it's all through your body.

And we use streams and rivers in much of the same way.

What we can learn about streams and rivers often tells us about the health of not just the water, but the landscape upstream.

And so, what we're working towards is trying to figure out how we can use these tools to better assess the health of our streams and rivers, and then try to design plans that improve that and sustain that so our generations to come get to go out there and catch fish, and chase crawdads, and do all kinds of fun things.

The scientists we've visited with, the animals we've seen, offer us but a glimpse of the tremendous freshwater diversity in Alabama.

But as we've heard from our guest scientists, the loss of species in Alabama's fresh waters is already a cause for serious concern.

Our goal, as freshwater ecologists, is to preserve the health of water bodies and also the biodiversity that's contained within those aquatic ecosystems.

But we have a whole slew of problems, and those problems range from dams along our rivers that disconnect water bodies so fish can't move upstream or downstream, which impacts our mussel assemblages.

We have problems such as sedimentation and runoff from urban ecosystems.

There's a lot of mining, not just here, but all across the globe.

And then on top of that we have things such as invasive species coming into our water bodies that are competing with our native freshwater species.

And so, we're kind of fighting at both ends of trying to keep things out, whether it's pollutants coming from systems, keeping species that don't belong here out, and then reestablishing connectivity in aquatic ecosystems.

So, it's a big battle.

(waterfall whooshing) Threats to freshwater systems are multiple fold.

People think mostly of point source pollution, or pollution that comes from a pipe like from a local wastewater treatment plant.

But there's also inputs from the watershed itself, whether from storm water or nutrient runoffs that do impact our freshwater systems, and do impact water quality significantly.

Many of these watersheds have been so physically modified that there's a disconnection with the floodplain, with the natural floodplain.

And the production of rivers and the productivity of rivers is on the margins.

And can we be sure Alabama's freshwater habitats will always be protected?

Well, that depends.

Alabama's future will ride heavily on the care and concern of upcoming generations.

In that regard, let me extend a big thanks to UA students, Sarah Busby and Ian Brunetz, who served as "Discovering Alabama" interns in producing this show.

And to close this show, I think maybe their settlements fit best.

It is our hope that more and more people will get involved with efforts to protect Alabama's waters.

As the naturalist Robert Swan said, "The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it."

But Alabama's natural diversity is our natural heritage.

It's our responsibility to be good stewards of our part of the creation.

(bird chirping) (calm gentle music) (calm gentle music continues) (calm gentle music continues) (calm gentle music continues) (calm gentle music continues) (calm gentle music continues) (calm gentle music continues) (calm gentle music continues) [Narrator] "Discovering Alabama" is produced in partnership with Alabama Public Television.

(calm gentle music) "Discovering Alabama" is a production of the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

(calm gentle music) This program is supported by grants from The Solon and Martha Dixon Foundation, The Steiner Foundation, and the Alabama Wildlife Federation, working for wildlife since 1935.