With funding from the Biotic Surveys and Inventories program of the National Science Foundation, Laurie Anderson is participating in a multiyear international collaboration to inventory the aquatic animals of Alto Purús National Park and Purús Communal Reserve. Alto Purús, with Manu National Park and adjacent protected areas in Bolivia and Brazil, is the largest conservation corridor in the Amazon Basin. Nonetheless, only minimal baseline biodiversity data is currently available for the aquatic fauna of the region and Projecto Alto Purús will focus on fully characterizing diversity within the crustaceans, fishes, platyhelminths, mollusks, and sponges of this region.
 
The geologic setting of Alto Purús provides a unique opportunity within the Amazon Basin to examine the generation and maintenance of tropical aquatic biodiversity. This region lies within the Fitzcarrald Arch, a geomorphic and structural feature that subdivides the western Amazon into variously named sub-basins. Four fluvial systems, all tributaries of the Amazon River, drain the Fitzcarrald Arch: the Ríos Alto Yuruá (Juruá), Purús, Madeira, and Ucayali The headwaters of these drainages are hydrologically semi-isolated by rapids and uplift of the region has been dated to ~4 Ma (Espurt et al 2007), providing an minimum age estimate for divergence of populations/species in these drainages.

In July and August 2008, Laurie Anderson participated in fieldwork on Río Alto Yuruá with colleagues from the USA, Spain, Argentina, and Peru. Anderson served as taxon coordinator for molusks. Field work focused on three primary environments: the Ríos Yuruá and Huacapishtea, lakes or cochas (primarily oxbow lakes), and small tributary rivers or quebradas. Mollusks, particularly unionoid bivalves or pearly mussels (families Hyriidae, Etheriidae and Mycetopodidae) and apple snails (family Ampullariidae), were diverse and abundant. In the following three years, expeditions to each of the other drainages of the Fitzcarrald Arch are planned.  For more information about the project and opportunities for students to participate, please contact Laurie Anderson  at glande@lsu.edu