Charleston Symposium

To the FWGNA group,

The Charleston meeting is shaping up very nicely. Here's the current list of participants in our featured symposium, "The Biology and Conservation of Freshwater Gastropods." Their titles are, in many cases, tentative:

• John Alderman - Evolution of aquatic habitat conservation in North Carolina.
• Art Bogan and M. Raley - The conservation status of the Magnificent Ramshorn (Planorbella magnifica).
• Ken Brown - A general review of the conservation status of North American freshwater gastropods.
• Matthias Glaubrecht - Leopold von Buch's legacy: Treating species as dynamic natural entities, or Why geography matters.
• Rob Guralnick - Tying together bioinformatics and molecular approaches to discover conservation units.
• Paul Johnson - TBA.
• Steve Johnson - Spatial patterns of genetic structure, armature and coloration in Mexipyrgus churinceanus.
• Eileen Jokinen - TBA.
• Chuck Lydeard - The Phylogenetic Species Concept and its application in the conservation of freshwater mollusks.
• Bob McMahon - TBA.
• Elizabeth Milhalcik & Fred Thompson - The "Elimia" curvicostata species complex.
• Doug Shelton - The Freshwater Gastropods of Mississippi: Pioneer Survey Efforts in the 21st Century.
• Tim Stewart - Distribution and status of the freshwater gastropods of Virginia.
• Jon Todd - Species diversity assessment, sediment impact and point endemism: Problems in conservation assessment for highly speciose rift-lake endemics.
• Amy Wethington - Conservation issues in the Physa gyrina group.

And as if this weren't enough, that hard-working Amy Wethington has organized a special session entitled "Pulmonate Gastropods In The Laboratory" promising to provide a lot of additional insight into the biology of our favorite group!

• Susan Bandoni - TBA.
• Ken Brown - What can radio-isotope methods tell us about grazing in Physa?
• Thom DeWitt and Brian Langerhans - I. Overgeneralized cues induce maladaptive phenotypic plasticity in a pulmonate snail. Also II. Multivariate selection and emergent impacts of multiple predators in a freshwater snail-fish-crayfish system.
• Vasiliki Flari - Reproductive endocrinology of terrestrial pulmonates, mainly Deroceras reticulatum, Arion subfuscus, & Helix aspersa.
• Tom McCarthy - TBA
• Tom Smith & Rob Dillon - "Social facilitation" accelerates self-fertilization in Physa.
• Andy Turner - Nonlethal effects of predators on behavior and growth of Physa integra: comparing mesocosm and field experiments.
• Amy Wethington - Divergence and reproductive isolation in physids among populations of the gyrina group.

Many additional talks and posters dealing with diverse aspects of freshwater snail biology will be contributed. You won't want to miss this meeting! The deadline for early registration (and paper/poster submission) is May 15. Go to the website: http://dillonr.people.cofc.edu/AMS2002.htm

See you here!
Rob