0421 Poster Session I, Acadia/Bissonet, Friday 8 July 2016; SSAR VICTOR HUTCHISON STUDENT POSTER AWARD: CONSERVATION & MANAGEMENT Mike Iacchetta, C. M. Gienger, A. Floyd Scott, Ben Beas Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN, USA The Effect of Cattle on Amphibian and Reptile Communities in West Tennessee We conducted ten years of reptile and amphibian surveys in western Tennessee to compare seasonal abundances of herpetofauna in habitats with access by cattle and habitats without access by cattle. Eighteen fishless ponds and their adjacent forested habitats were surveyed for amphibians and reptiles. Pond-dwelling amphibians were more abundant in habitats without cattle access, whereas, reptiles were more abundant in habitats with access by cattle. In cattle excluded habitats, Ambystoma talpoideum had a greater abundance and longer snout-vent length. In contrast, Diadophis punctatus were less abundance yet had longer snout-vent length in the same cattle excluded habitats. Areas with cattle access are associated with more open canopy habitat, which may create increased opportunities for thermoregulation in reptiles. Our results also suggest that cattle presence may alter the water quality of ponds and thus affect the abundance and body size of pond-dwelling amphibians. ______________________________________________________________________________ 0706 Fish Systematics I, Salon F-H, Saturday 9 July 2016 Katriina Ilves1, Hernán López-Fernández2 1Pace University, New York, NY, USA, 2Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON, Canada A Targeted Exon approach for (Neotropical) Cichlid Phylogenomics Here we present a targeted exon next-generation sequencing approach for investigating the evolutionary relationships of cichlid fishes (Cichlidae), with a particular focus on the Neotropical subfamily Cichlinae. A set of 923 primarily single-copy exons was identified and probes were designed through mining of the Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) genome. Sequence capture and assembly were robust, leading to a complete dataset of 415 exons for 141 species (147 terminals) of primarily Neotropical cichlids. Gene trees and species trees were calculated using alternative partitioning schemes and reconstruction methods and the resulting trees and approaches are compared and discussed. Overall, this approach yielded a well-resolved phylogeny of Neotropical cichlids that will be of utility for future assessments of the evolutionary and ecological processes within this diverse group of fishes. Furthermore, the general methodology employed here of exon targeting and capture should be applicable to any group of organisms with the availability of a reference genome. ______________________________________________________________________________ 0126 Fish Systematics I, Salon F-H, Saturday 9 July 2016 Katriina Ilves2, Maria Claudia Malabarba3, Hernán López-Fernández1 1Royal Ontario Museum/Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2Pace University, New York, New York, USA, 3Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Phylogenomics, Fossils and a Tip-dating approach to the Age of Neotropical Cichlids Given the importance of cichlids as models in the study of macroevolution, the timing of their divergence has been the focus of several recent studies, but no consensus on the age of the family or its main clades has been reached. Differences in fossil calibrations, molecular markers and dating methods are all likely contributing to current disagreements regarding the age of cichlids. Central to recent studies of cichlid age are Eocene South American fossils (~47 Ma) identified as belonging to each of the three main tribes of the Neotropical clade, Cichlinae. In this study we expand a previous morphological dataset to a matrix of 150 characters of osteology and squamation for 74 living taxa from all Cichlinae clades and 5 Neotropical cichlid fossils. We use a phylogenomic exon-based hypothesis of Neotropical cichlid relationships (Ilves et al. Unpubl) to constraint sets of 10 concatenated exons with the morphological dataset and analyze them under a total-evidence, tip-dating Bayesian framework. We compare dates obtained with widely used ETOL genes with dates obtained with other exons and explore the effect of root priors on cichlid age estimates. ______________________________________________________________________________ 1041 AES GRUBER AWARD, Balconies J & K, Thursday 7 July 2016 Johanna Imhoff, R. Dean Grubbs Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA Comparative Mercury Contamination in Demersal Deep Sea Sharks in the Gulf of Mexico As mid to upper trophic level predators, elasmobranchs are at risk of carrying high loads of bioaccumulating toxicants. Methylmercury (MeHg) is of particular concern in fishes because high levels of contamination can put humans at risk for reproductive and neurological problems via fish consumption. Research on MeHg contamination in deep sea sharks has shown that MeHg concentration increases with the size of the shark, often exceeds recommended values for safe human consumption and generally increases with increasing trophic level and with dependence on benthic versus pelagic food webs. MeHg is one of several pollutants that are of particular concern after an oil spill. It has been hypothesized that oil spills create ideal conditions for blooms in the bacteria that methylate mercury. As mid to upper trophic level predators, deep sea sharks have the potential to bioaccumulate high concentrations of MeHg and their high longevity may facilitate the persistence of high levels of MeHg in the system for long periods of time. Therefore mercury analysis of coexisting deep sea sharks in a habitat near a source of anthropogenic pollution (i.e. the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill) could provide useful information on the roles of taxonomy and depth habitat in toxicological response of mesopredators after an oil spill. Methylmercury speciation and concentrations will be analyzed in six shark species that range from the continental shelf edge to the mid-slope and include both Carcarhiniformes (Mustelus canis, M. sinusmexicanus) and Squaliformes (Squalus cubensis, S. cf. mitsukurii, Centrophorus uyato, C. granulosus). ______________________________________________________________________________ 0723 AES Sawfishes Symposium, Salon E, Sunday 10 July 2016 Rima Jabado, Reem Al Baharna, Sultan Al Ali, Mohsin Al Ameri, Ayesha Al Blooshi Environment Agency Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates The Last Stand of the Critically Endangered Green Sawfish, Pristis zijsron, in the Arabian Gulf? Sawfishes represent one the most threatened group of marine fishes around the world. Historical declines have been documented throughout the geographic distribution of all five species and it has been suggested that they might be extinct as a functional component in Arabian Gulf coastal ecosystems. Interviews with fishermen were conducted across the United Arab Emirates (UAE) between November 2015-April 2016 to determine the national status of sawfishes, gather information on encounters and abundance, as well as identify locations where populations might still be found. Based on pictures and rostra from various sources, the only species recorded in UAE waters is the green sawfish, Pristis zijsron. Fishermen confirmed sawfishes had drastically declined in the last 20 years yet the majority of respondents reported encounters in the last five to ten years. Sawfishes were not perceived to be a culturally significant resource and when caught were mainly used as a source of food, with their high value fins sold to traders and rostra retained as decorations in houses. The consensus was that sawfish used to be targeted but are now only caught as incidental catch primarily with gillnets and hook and line. While results of this study provide evidence of a large decline in sawfishes in the past 20 years, they highlight the importance of Abu Dhabi waters as a region where sawfishes are still encountered and provide an area where research, monitoring, as well as conservation and recovery efforts should be focused to avoid local extinction and restore robust populations. ______________________________________________________________________________ 0658 ASIH: Lessons From, and Visions For Symposium, Salon D, Sunday 10 July 2016 Donald Jackson1, Cindy Chu2, Nigel Lester2 1University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources & Forestry, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada Long-term (and Large-scale) Monitoring of Lake Fish Communities in Ontario Ontario has more than 250,000 lakes and managing these resources presents significant challenges given factors such as the very large spatial scale of Ontario, the diversity of natural environmental conditions, and the different demands and impacts on these systems (e.g. angling pressures) across Ontario. The Ontario government has several long-term monitoring programs across the province addressing various issues (fish populations, fish contaminants, water quality). We provide a brief overview of such programs and examine one, the Broad-scale Monitoring for Inland Lakes Program, in depth. This program samples approximately 150 lakes per year using a standardized protocol, with some lakes undergoing repeated sampling in a five-year cycle. We present issues related to how the program was started, how it is funded, and the design of the sampling program. We consider some challenges presented in developing and operating such a large program, in particular