NOTICE OF INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, HQ, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church 22041 intends to award a sole source firm fixed price order under authority of FAR 6.302-1, Other than Full and Open Competition procedures, and FAR Part 13 Simplified Acquisition procedures to The University of Alabama, Huntsville, Alabama.

This requirement is for continuity of services to expand on Biosurvey Study and eDNA efforts conducted by the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH) back in 2019. The study was done to increase the understanding of subterranean biodiversity in Key Cave and vicinity using species-specific and eDNA metabarcoding approaches to identify potential sites for federal and state rare, threatened, and endangered species, including Alabama Cavefish and Tuscumbia Cave Shrimp.

The University of Alabama in Huntsville started its initial work in 2019 by collecting data; however, additional information will require follow up sampling to fill in knowledge gaps and expand on additional species from previous work. UAH will revisit the same pools that were surveyed in 2019 using the same methodology. They will be able to use and compare genetic information previously collected in 2019 to resample and estimate additional biota presence from their previous work.

Because UAH has exclusive rights to the genetic information, for consistency in the data collection, and to build on previous knowledge, it is critical that the remaining work be performed by UAH to documenting progress, monitoring development and data protection. The recipient has developed the databases and models for these projects; and the proposed work builds upon the earlier research.

The main goal of the project is to protect, inventory, monitor, and conserve imperiled terrestrial and aquatic State and/or Federal Threatened, Endangered Species, developed and implemented a protection plan to increase conservation efforts for the Alabama cavefish found within Key Cave.

These activities have followed a decision-based framework and reaching a critical phase where continued collaboration with The University of Alabama in Huntsville will ensure that the collected data and the development of genetic assays for the endemic species in Key Cave, be built upon other biota in the cave to complete the comprehensive genetic library. The North American Industry classification (NAICS) code is 541690, and the size standard is $19.0 million.

This notice is not a request for competitive proposals; however, firms with expressed interest and capability are encouraged to respond. A determination by the Government not to compete this requirement based on responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the