First I should acknowledge 11 new recruits to this list - all FMCS members who have recently indicated an interest in the gastropod committee, and/or attended their first FWGNA meeting last Tuesday evening.  Welcome all!  Our roster stands at 107 names.

We certainly had a marvelous three days in Pittsburgh.  I've appended a report on the overall FMCS meeting to the bottom of the present message.  This item was posted on the MOLLUSCA listserver earlier this morning, and may already be familiar to many of you.

The Gastropod Committee met from about 5:30 - 7:00 pm Tuesday, March 13.  Highlights included the appointment of Ken Brown as our new Co-Chair and a report from Paul Johnson on the National Strategy for Gastropod Conservation, as well as an update on the FWGNA project.  Amy Wethington took excellent notes, which Ken kindly volunteered to edit and have typed.  Complete minutes are available online at:
14Mar01.htm

Plans for two upcoming meetings were roughed out.  Freshwater gastropods will be the focus of the AMS meeting in Charleston, August 2002.  Paul hopes to have a conservation strategy presented and discussed at that time.  A workshop at the FWS Conservation and Training Center in Sheperdstown, possibly in connection with a national reference collection of freshwater gastropods, may also be on the horizon.

Details regarding all these matters depend on the outcome of our most recent NSF proposal, currently still under review.  We'll keep you posted!

Cheers,
Rob
 

--------[Begin report on FMCS meeting]----------

The Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society convened its second biennial symposium March 12 - 14, 2001, at the Westin Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh, Pa.  The largest fraction of the 220 registrants were state and federal natural resource managers, with a substantial contingent of aquatic biologists from research institutes large and small, private firms, and small consultancies.  Academia was fairly well represented, and a fair number of graduate students were in attendance.  The meeting was organized by Tom Proch and hosted by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

The 80 talks were organized into seven general topic areas over the three days - Biological Assessment (plenary), Status Surveys, Reproduction/Propagation/Juveniles, Life History & Ecology, Methods, Assessment & Conservation, and Evolution & Phylogenetics.  There was also a nice poster session, with 40 contributions.  Unionacean mussels were unquestionably the primary focus of the meeting, although there were a few gastropod talks, and even a bit of interest in pisidiid/sphaerid clams.

Most of the work of the FMCS is done in its nine committees, which met in the late afternoons. Evening social events included a "blues party" and a lively auction to the benefit of a nascent endowment supporting graduate student travel.  Outgoing president Paul Johnson crowned incumbent Kevin Cummings with a Viking "Raiders" helmet at the business luncheon Tuesday.  Opportunities to visit the Carnegie Museum and the Pittsburgh Aquarium were offered Wednesday afternoon.

A volume of proceedings from two 1998 meetings, published by the Ohio Biological Survey, was released in Pittsburgh (contact Paul Johnson, pdj@sari.org).  The FMCS already publishes a strong newsletter ("Ellipsaria") three times a year, and is studying the possibility of supporting a journal.  Plans are currently underway for two workshops in 2002 - Mussel propagation in Sheperdstown WV (March), and gastropod conservation with the AMS in Charleston (August).  The next full symposium is scheduled for March, 2003, in Raleigh NC.

Although almost entirely North American in its membership at this point, the FMCS continues to invite and encourage worldwide participation.  We would especially welcome new members from the museum-based community, and researchers from any broader discipline with a molluscan focus.

For info on the 2002 mussel propagation workshop, see:
http://unionid.smsu.edu/

Info on the 2002 gastropod workshop will be available on the FWGNA page.  Bookmark:
fwgnahome.htm

General info on the FMCS may be obtained at:
http://ellipse.inhs.uiuc.edu/FMCS/

Or contact the Society secretary:
Rita Villella
USGS-BRD
Leetown Science Center
1700 Leetown Road
Kearneysville, WV 25430
Phone:(304) 724-4472
e-mail: rita_villella@usgs.gov
 

-------[End report on FMCS Meeting]------------------