“…Largely restricted to the highly altered Mississippi River basin and several Gulf Coast drainages, Blue Suckers have declined in abundance due to habitat degradation, loss of habitat connectivity, and anthropogenic flow modifications (Smith, 1979; Cooke et al, 2005; Acre et al, 2021). Blue Suckers are known to make annual migrations of up to 545 km for spring spawning events (Bednarski and Scarnecchia, 2006); however, many extant populations are restricted in impounded segments of river with limited access to diverse habitats (Rupprecht and Jahn, 1980; BIO-WEST, 2006; Steffensen et al, 2015; Acre et al, 2021). When connectivity is lost, isolated populations can lose genetic diversity at an accelerated rate through random sampling via genetic drift, leading to genetic impoverishment, inbreeding, and decreased fitness at both the individual and population level (Steffensen et al, 2015; McIntyre et al, 2016; Zarri et al, 2022).…”