autumnal abstracts

[Frederick W. Schueler]

Everyone,

Here are the abstracts from our proposed presentations at fall meetings:
we cancelled out of the Quebec City herpetological meetings, and out of
in-person participation at the Burlington Mollusc meetings. We went to
the Deep River Dumoine River art show, where we addressed the (small)
multitude on the need to incorporate natural history knowledge of
situations into conservation art activism (promising to revive the art
activism blog - https://paintersforconservation.blogspot.com/ ), and the
River Institute's "Changing Waters" Symposium -
https://riversymposium.riverinstitute.ca/2025/ - where we pitched the
idea that we could spend 2026 "doing" all of our species and projects
along the St Lawrence River, in co-operation with the Great River
Rapport - https://riverrapport.ca/ - in our little new (1969) trailer.
Christina Davy read our paper at the herp meeting, and Matt & Amanda
took our poster paper. I did our Mollusc talk remotely as the last paper
of the conference, and they posted the abstracts of the posters we
didn't have time to prepare, but which we're going to put up as blog posts.

fred.
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---------Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad ------------
Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/
6 St-Lawrence Street Bishops Mills, RR#2 Oxford Station, Ontario K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44.87156° N 75.70095° W
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Schueler, Frederick W., 2025. Floating Vernal Snails: summer studies of
species & mortality in seasonal waterbodies. ABSTRACT: Triggered by an
interest in the distribution of Aplexa [snails] in eastern Ontario
vernal wetlands, I have begun taking dry 20 litre samples of vernal pool
bottoms, mixing them with water, and floating snail shells out of them.
Preliminary results are that Aplexa is more widespread than expected,
that no live snails revived to attach to the bins the soil was soaked
in, and that the huge numbers of juvenile shells suggest that the snails
reproduce until the water is gone, and then survive if adult and die if
juvenile. Remote platform presentation at 6th Biennial Canadian
Freshwater Mollusc Research Meeting, 4-6 Nov 2025, Canada Centre for
Inland Waters, Burlington, Ontario.

Schueler, Frederick W., 2025. Abundance of large heavy-shelled Unionids
in the South Nation River below the dam in Chesterville. ABSTRACT: As
part of a survey of low-water conditions in eastern Ontario during the
2025 drought, I sampled the South Nation River below the dam in
Chesterville (45.10159° N, -75.22190° W), finding a distinctive Unionid
fauna of large heavy-shelled mussels, including some which had died from
low water. Strikingly sexually dimorphic Pocketbook Lampsilis were most
abundant, with fewer big Lasmigona costata and Ligumia recta, many
elongate Strophitus undulatus, and few Elliptio and Pyganodon. This
fauna had previously been sampled just below the dam, and deserves
recognition as one of the major biodiversity assets of the South Nation
drainage. Poster presentation at 6th Biennial Canadian Freshwater
Mollusc Research Meeting, 4-6 Nov 2025, Canada Centre for Inland Waters,
Burlington, Ontario (abstract posted).

Schueler, Frederick W., & Matt G. Keevil. 2025. Bulimnaea megasoma:
Ubiquisnail or Species-at-risk? ABSTRACT: Triggered by Matt's position
as the most frequent identifier of Bulimnaea megasoma on iNaturalist, we
were astonished to learn that this "mega" snail is regarded as
extirpated, potentially extirpated, or absent in nearby States, and
declining in Manitoba. We present accounts of the diversity of habitats
the species inhabits in eastern Ontario, hoping to solicit the opinions
of others about the species' status in their areas. Poster presentation
at 6th Biennial Canadian Freshwater Mollusc Research Meeting, 4-6 Nov
2025, Canada Centre for Inland Waters, Burlington, Ontario (abstract
posted).

Schueler, Fred. 2025. Herpetology at a Random Location: Bishops Mills,
Ontario – Patterns & Hypotheses. ABSTRACT: At the onset of concern about
Amphibian Decline in 1992, it was pointed out that the only change many
studies would find would be decline, because they were established in
sites where the studied species were abundant. This same bias leaves out
much of the countryside, where many species are scarce or absent. We
started nightly auditory monitoring (1 March-1 August) in 1992 from
where we happened to live (44.87170° N, 75.70044° W) and in 2003 started
doing-the-streets on a 267 m transect there. I qualitatively discuss
occurrence of Anaxyrus americanus (593 on road records, 845 calling),
Dryophytes versicolor (152 on road, 1047 calling), Pseudacris crucifer
(71 on road, 1028 calling), Lithobates pipiens (904 on road, 91
calling), Lithobates clamitans (519 on road, 322 calling), Lithobates
catesbeianus (221 on road, 462 calling), Lithobates sylvaticus (18 on
road, 111 calling), Lithobates septentrionalis (4 on road, 113 calling),
Storeria occipitomaculata (96 on road), Thamnophis sirtalis (90 on
road), Pseudacris triseriata/maculata (38 calling), Nerodia sipedon (10
on road), Ambystoma cf laterale (10 on road), Chrysemys picta (5 on
road), Emydoidea blandingii (1 on road), Chelydra serpentina (1 on
road), and Lampropeltis triangulum (1 on road). Presented by Christina
Davy at the Canadian Herpetological Society, Quebec City September 2025.

Schueler, Fred, & Cheryl Doran. 2025. Heritage Poster: Turtle slows
commuter train plan (Cheryl Doran, 2006). In 2005, when the City of
Ottawa first proposed their ill-fated light rail system, they were going
to make the rail yard for parking and repairing the trains by filling an
unevaluated wetland along Lester Road, where there had long been
rumoured sightings of Blanding’s Turtles (Emydoidea blandingii). Cheryl
Doran patrolled Lester Road through 2006 and afterwards, found a DOR
juvenile Emydoidea, agitated for the protection of the wetland, and
prepared this poster of newspaper clippings about the situation. Poster
paper at the Canadian Herpetological Society, Quebec City September 2025.