Review comments on FR 77(200) October 16, 2012, pages 63440-63536. 50 CFR 17

Arthur E. Bogan, Ph.D 17 December 2012 Research Curator of Aquatic Invertebrates North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences 11 West Jones St. Raleigh, NC 27601

I would have welcomed comments on the use of supporting museum data and not just data gleaned from published reports.

Neosho Mucket (Lampsilis rafinesqueana) The comments on this species seem to cover the literature, biology and distribution quite well in my opinion. However, this is outside of my area of experience in the field.

Rabbitsfoot (Quadrula cylindrica cylindrica) Detailed anatomy of the Rabbitsfoot was provided by Williams et al. (2008:652) based on 6 specimens from northern Alabama but not included in this review. Historic and modern changes to the freshwater mussel fauna of the Tennessee River including archaeological, historic and modern records included information on the range of the Rabbitsfoot (Hughes and Parmalee, 1999). Garner and McGregor (2001) document the last report of the Rabbitsfoot from the Muscle Shoals area of the Tennessee River in northern Alabama as 1931 based on work reported by van der Schalie. The fauna of the lower Duck River in Tennessee was recently reported including the Rabbitsfoot by Shilling and Williams (2002) and included the Rabbitsfoot. The major historical work on the distribution of the Rabbitsfoot in the upper Ohio River basin in western Pennsylvania is Ortmann (1919:52-56). It is an early source of other biological and distributional data on this species but was not cited. The unionid fauna of the Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia was extirpated by about 1900 (Ortmann, 1909) but seven species have re-invaded the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania but does not include the Rabbitsfoot (Hart, 2012). Along this same line the recent volume on the freshwater mussels of Ohio (Watters et al., 2009:266-269) including the Rabbitsfoot was over looked. Watters et al. (2009:269) report hostfish as including Etheostoma caerulium (Rainbow darter) and Luxilus chryocephalus (Striped Shiner). The first species was overlooked in the listing package. Page 63446 right column last paragraph makes no mention of the populations in the Allegheny River in western Pennsylvania as containing historical populations of the Rabbitsfoot. Page 6355 right column: Impoundments. It would seem prudent to include the work on dams and their downstream effects on freshwater mussels by Vaughn and Spooner (1999). Page 63462 left column: C. Disease or Predation: Grizzle and Brunner (2007) is cited but is absent from the literature cited file provided. Page 63475 right column: Proposed Critical Habitat Designation. The authors note that “Three critical habitat units proposed for the Neosho mucket and rabbitsfoot are currently designated under the Act for the oyster mussel (Epioblasma capsaeformis) and Cumblerland Combshell (Epioblasma brevidens) encompassing the Duck River, Tennessee).” This was true when listed. However, the population of Epioblasma capsaeformis in the Duck River, Tennessee has been renamed Epioblasma ahlstedti Jones and Neves, 2010. This is a species separate and distinct from Epioblasma capsaeformis in the upper Tennessee River basin. Literature Cited for “Neosho mucket and Rabbitsfoot Proposed Listing and Designation of Critical Habitat August 2012.” First, I would like to point out that this list is not in proper order by author or date. Second, the citation of Grizzle and Brunner, 2007 is missing from this section but is cited in the FR listing package. Third, the initials for Bogan are A.E. not A.I in the Literature Cited for Williams et al. (2008) Freshwater mussels of Alabama.

I fully endorse the listing of these two species regardless of the above comments.

Literature Cited: Garner, J.T., and S.W. McGregor. 2001. Current status of freshwater mussels (Unionidae, Margaritiferidae) in the Muscle Shoals area of the Tennessee River in Alabama (Muscle Shoals revisited again). American Malacological Bulletin 16(1–2):155–170. Hart, Jonathan, "Freshwater Mussel Populations of the Monongahela River, PA and Evaluation of the ORSANCO Copper Pole Substrate Sampling Technique Using G.I.S. Interpolation with Geometric Means" (2012). Theses and Dissertations. Marshall University, Huntington, WV. Paper 242. (unpublished). http://mds.marshall.edu/etd/242 Hughes, M.H., and P.W. Parmalee. 1999. Prehistoric and modern freshwater mussel (Mollusca: Bivalvia: Unionoidea) faunas of the Tennessee River: Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Regulated Rivers: Research and Management 15:25–42. Jones, J.W. and R.J. neves. 2010. Description of a new species and a new subspecies of freshwater mussels, Epioblasma ahlstedti and Epioblasma florentina aureola (Bivalvia: Unionidae), in the Tennessee River drainage, USA. The Nautilus 124(2):77-92. Ortmann, A.E. 1919. A monograph of the naiades of Pennsylvania. Part III: systematic account of the genera and species. Memoirs of the Carnegie Museum 8(1):1–384, 21 plates. Shilling, E.M. and J.D. Williams. 2002. Freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Margaritiferidae and Unionidae) of the lower Duck River in middle Tennessee: a historic and recent review. Southeastern Naturalist 1(4):403-414. Vaughn, C.C. and C.M. Taylor. 1999. Impoundments and the decline of freshwater mussels: a case study of an extinction gradient. Conservation Biology 13(4):912-920. Watters, G.T., M.A. Hoggarth and D.H. Stansbery. 2009. The freshwater mussels of Ohio. The Ohio State University Press, Columbus. 421 pages. Williams, J.D., A.E. Bogan and J.T. Garner.2008. Freshwater mussels of Alabama and the Mobile Basin in Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. xv, 908 pages, 766 figures.