Thanks to the cooperation between ČSOB, a.s. and FFPW USB, student projects focused on supporting biodiversity, sustainable fishing, and the protection of aquatic ecosystems are being developed.
One of these is a project by Jakub Kocour, a doctoral student, which focuses on the occurrence of crayfish in the Volyňka River and its main tributaries. The aim of this project is to map the distribution of native and invasive crayfish species.
Invasive species pose a serious threat to our native crayfish, not only because they compete for the same food sources and shelters. The most serious problem, however, is that they can transmit crayfish plague. This disease, caused by the pathogen Aphanomyces astaci, has fatal consequences for native populations.
In the spring and summer, the first environmental DNA (eDNA) samples were collected, and crayfish were caught by hand in the Volyňka River and its tributaries in the vicinity of Vimperk and further downstream. High school students from the Secondary Fish Farming School and Higher Vocation School of Water Management and Ecology, Vodňany also participated in the catches. In the coming period, we will begin analysing the collected eDNA samples in the laboratory.
You can watch the video created for the project here.
