To the FWGNA group:
I'm pleased to report that registration topped 100 at the FMCS gastropod
workshop at the University of Alabama last week. The weather was warm,
the facilities adequate, and our hosts most gracious. A good time was had
by all.
FMCS president Tom Watters opened the water quality portion of the conference
Monday and Ken Brown spoke on the status of freshwater snails in the southeast
Tuesday, both talks I was sorry to miss. The meat of the gastropod
conference was served on Wednesday, with 9 talks of 30 - 45 minutes each,
organized systematically. The nice young folks making the presentations
were all well-prepared and thorough, compensating for lack of experience with
extra measures of enthusiasm. Perhaps the main message of the day was
that identifying freshwater gastropods ain't brain
surgery. A bit of background, a key reference or two, patience and
willingness to learn are all one really needs.
Most of the Wednesday presenters were, to borrow Kathryn Perez's apt turn of
phrase, "channeling Dr. Burch." The two exceptions were Amy Wethington, with her Ph.D. dissertation on the Physidae
recently defended, and (of course) Jack Burch himself. Jack used the
occasion to repeat his long standing quibbles with Hubendick's
(1951) monograph on the Lymnaeidae, arguably the greatest work on any family of
mollusks ever published. He prefers a modification of the systematic
arrangement of F. C. Baker which, innocent of the modern synthesis, was based
almost entirely on shell characters. Jack reviewed some micro-Ouchterlony results he obtained years ago which seem to
support the Baker classification. I would love to see these data
published in the peer-reviewed literature, where they might be objectively
evaluated.
Amy Wethington has 15 years of direct experience with
the Physidae and co-authorship of about a dozen peer-reviewed papers on various
aspects of their biology. Her classification, based on hundreds of DNA
sequences, allozymes, anatomy, reproductive biology and ecology, would reduce
the number of North American species from 40 to about 10, and genera from four
to two. Oddly, the editors of the meeting's Gastropod Identification
Workbook preferred the 23 - genus classification of Taylor (2003), based on
features of penial anatomy only Dr. Taylor can see, which if they exist, are
demonstrably immaterial to the snails themselves. Amy paid for a 20-page
supplement out of her own pocket, fairly and objectively reviewed all competing
classifications of the Physidae, and emerged as the hero of the meeting.
Thursday's presentations dealt with overarching topics, especially taxonomic
methods and ecological applications. The highlight of the day for me was
a dispatch from the front lines of freshwater gastropod conservation couriered
by Steve Ahlstedt and Paul Johnson. Steve
reviewed his many years of transplantation experiments with Io, and Paul
reported his more recent successes with captive propagation. I used my
presentation on freshwater gastropod distribution and ecology to introduce a
new web resource, the Freshwater Gastropods of South Carolina. The
individual species pages are still under construction, but the site is worth a
look:
FWGSC
A nice variety of freshwater gastropods, both the living and the
dead, kept mute witness on the side tables during the two day event. The
"show-your-shells" social Wednesday evening was a big hit - I myself
learned quite a lot from the interesting assortment of specimens carted to
Tuscaloosa from the four corners of this great land. Laurels are due to
meeting chairman Chuck Lydeard
and his hardworking young colleagues David Campbell, Stephanie Clark, Kathryn
Perez and Jeffrey Sides. Well done everybody!
Keep in touch,
Rob
P.S. - The meeting program is still on line if you’re curious:
http://ellipse.inhs.uiuc.edu/FMCS/Meetings/GastropodWorkshop.html [Link removed 09/06]
The FMCS Gastropod Identification Workbook is available as a PDF file from the
meeting site:
2004/FM http://ellipse.inhs.uiuc.edu/FMCS/Meetings/gastro CSGastropodID.pdf [Link removed
09/06]
But See addendum below!
ADDENDUM - 26Mar04
To the FWGNA group:
Chuck Lydeard has asked me to forward to the group an
explanation for his choice of the Taylor classification over the Wethington classification for the Physidae chapter of FMCS
Workbook. Apparently it was easier to format the poorer classification to
fit strict workbook guidelines.
---------[From Chuck Lydeard
25Mar04]-------------
As co-editor of "A Primer to Freshwater Gastropod
Identification" (Perez, Clark, and Lydeard), I
would like to explain our decision to opt for Taylor's (2003) classification
scheme of the Physidae for the workbook. First, we chose to adopt rather
strict guidelines for ALL authors to follow including a brief introduction of
the family, a small table giving a few species and their conservation rank, and
a general description and illustration for each genus in the family. The
oral presentations were also supposed to adhere to the guidelines offered for
each family account. Taylor (2003) offers the latest published account of
the family. Taylor's anatomical renderings for each genus are very useful
and provide an opportunity for the reader to see the entire male reproductive
tract with labels. Taylor has about 40 years of experience with
freshwater mollusks including physids, so he is certainly knowledgeable about
the group. Of course, our use of Taylor (2003) should not be construed as
an endorsement of his findings, nor should it be construed as a dismissal of
Amy Wethington's dissertation findings. I was
Amy's dissertation advisor, so I certainly appreciate and value what she
accomplished during her time as one of my graduate students. However, I did
not think all the intra-generic details she was willing to provide was
necessary for the workbook and certainly would have altered our format
appreciably. In closing, we are pleased with the workbook and feel it
fulfills its purpose as a primer to gastropod identification reasonably
well. We hope you will all look to the future for published phylogenetic studies about various freshwater families of
gastropods.
Best,
Chuck Lydeard
------------------------------------------------------------------
Quite a few of you have written me to request the Wethington
Physidae supplement. Here it is:
http://www.cofc.edu/~fwgna/downloads/Amys_Physidae_Supplement.pdf
I don't know why, the main gastropod workbook edited by Perez, Clark & Lydeard currently seems to be unavailable from the FMCS web
site. So I've put it up on the FWGNA site as well:
http://www.cofc.edu/~fwgna/downloads/FMCSGastropodID.pdf
Keep in touch,
Rob