Abstracts Scribner-Zhuang Last Edited 6/5/2017 0412 Snake Biology I, Sunday 16 July 2017 Jacob Scribner, Matthew Kwiatkowski Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas, USA Facial Stripes Influence Attack Frequency on Snake Models Dark facial markings in vertebrates can serve a variety of functions, including glare reduction, social signaling, and aposematism. Dark facial markings in the form of stripes are common in some snake groups, but little is known about their function. It has been hypothesized that they may act as either social signals to conspecifics or as warning signals to potential predators. We tested the hypothesis that facial stripes act as signals to potential predators using plasticine models. Snake models were shaped with a plaster mold using brown plasticine that most closely matched the color of some local snake species. For half of the models, facial stripes were added using black plasticine. Models were placed at regularly spaced intervals, alternating those with and without facial stripes, along a little-used trail in the Stephen F. Austin Experimental Forest in eastern Texas. In an initial test, models were left for 72 hours, retrieved, and scored for attacks when visible markings from mammals or birds were present. Models with facial stripes had visible attack marks significantly more than models without stripes (P = 0.002). Our results seem to contradict the hypothesis that facial stripes act as a warning to predators. However, attacks on models were not random, suggesting that models with facial stripes were targeted. Models with facial stripes may have been perceived as more of a threat and were, therefore, attacked more frequently. ______________________________________________________________________________ 0525 ASIH STOYE ECOLOGY & ETHOLOGY II, Thursday 13 July 2017 Jason D. Selwyn1, Paolo Usseglio2, J. Derek Hogan1 1Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas, USA, 2Fundacion In- Nova, Castilla la Mancha, Spain Fine-scale microhabitat usage of a putative habitat generalist reef dwelling goby, Coryphopterus personatus Variability in habitat quality influences species both at the population level as well as the individual level. At the population level, habitat quality has been found to be a primary driver of metapopulations and dispersal dynamics, affecting the frequency and strength of dispersal polymorphisms. At the individual level, habitat quality affects the growth rate and reproductive output as well as the mortality rate, amongst other processes. A wide range of characteristics of any given habitat can be thought of as being either beneficial or harmful to any given species. As such, defining habitat quality needs to be done from the perspective of the species being studied. Using structure- from-motion photogrammetry we characterize fine-scale microhabitat usage across both habitat type and topographical features to determine microhabitat usage of a coral-reef goby, Coryphopterus personatus. Using a zero-inflated negative binomial analytical approach we find that both the presence of shoals and the density of individuals within shoals are significantly influenced by aspects of both habitat topography and type. Understanding the factors defining habitat quality in a habitat generalist provides an important baseline for assessing the potential effects of future habitat degradation as is predicted to occur on coral reefs. Furthermore, these findings provide the basis for future studies seeking to understand how variation in habitat quality influence both individual and population scale processes. ______________________________________________________________________________ 0381 Poster Session I, Rio Grande Exhibit Hall, Friday 14 July 2017 Alexander Semenchenko Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, Primorskiy Territory, Russia Phylogeny of the genus Thymallus (graylings) using complete mtDNA Graylings (Thymallinae) are holarctic fishes, which have widespread distribution ranges across Eurasia and North American continents. As all salmonids, these fish live in rivers with pristine and cold water and often play an important role in game fishing and aquaculture. Despite such a great popularity, there are still many unresolved questions about taxonomic validity, phylogenetic relationships and biogeography of many grayling species. The recent phylogenetic studies have resulted in molecular trees with very poor resolution. Therefore, the goal of the current study is to reconstruct the phylogeny of grayling species collected from the distant locations in Siberia and in Far Eastern regions of Russia, including the additional data from Genbank. We sequenced the whole mitochondrial genome for each individual and used the Bayesian approach to build the phylogenetic tree based on the alignment matrix with the best-fitted gene partitioning scheme. Our analysis shows that the monophyletic group with two species, Thymallus grubii flavomaculatus and T. tugarinae, from the Amur River basin represents the most ancient divergence, which occurred about 5 Ma. Its sister lineage progressively expanded from Ponto-Caspian basin and Europe. The latter monophyletic group also included the lineages of several species/subspecies collected in the Amur River basin: T. grubii, T. burejensis and T. baicalolenensis, indicating that the common ancestor of all grayling species used in our study had lived in that watershed. Phylogeny of grayling fishes calibrated with the molecular clock approach provides us with a new knowledge about evolution and historical biogeography of freshwater fauna. ______________________________________________________________________________ 0882 Herp Ecology I, Friday 14 July 2017 Jeffrey Seminoff1, Lisa Komoroske1, Peter Dutton1, Miguel Donoso2, Maike Heidemeyer3, Gabriel Hoeffer4, T. Todd Jones5, Shaleyla Kelez6, Garrett Lemons7, Nelly de Paz8, Juan Manuel Rodriguez Baron9, Laura Sampson10, Lucia Santos Baca11, Joel Schumacher1, Maria Vejar Rubio12, Patricia Zarate13, Alan Zavala12, Brian Popp14 1NOAA-National Marine Fisheries Service, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, La Jolla, CA, USA, 2Proyecto Laúd, Quilpué, Chile, 3Asociación Programa Restauración de Tortuga Marinas, Tibás, San José, Costa Rica, 4Comcáac community, Desemboque, Sonora, Mexico, 5NOAA-National Marine Fisheries Service, Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, Honolulu, HI, USA, 6Ecoceanica, Lima, Peru, 7Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA, 8Areas Costeras y Recursos Marinos, Pisco, Peru, 9Universidad Autonoma de Baja California Sur, La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, 10Department of Biology, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia, 11Department of Natural Resources, Centro de Investigaciónes Biologicas del Noroeste, La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, 12Istitutuo Politécnico Nacional, CIIDIR, Unidad Sinaloa, Guasave, Sinaloa, Mexico, 13Instituto Fomento Pesquero, Valparaiso, Chile, 14Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA Trophic Ecology of Green Sea Turtles Across the Eastern Pacific Ocean: Insights from Bulk Tissue and Compound Specific Stable Isotope Analysis The trophic ecology of a species is among its most fundamental biological aspects. Patterns of resource use and niche width affect somatic growth and demography, and have important implications for species resilience and management. Green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) are present throughout tropical to temperate marine habitats worldwide and historical paradigms suggest they are obligate herbivores in these areas with diets consisting of seagrasses and/or marine algae. In the eastern Pacific, stomach content data indicate that green turtles are opportunistic omnivores that may occupy multiple trophic levels; however, the spatial patterns of their resource use in this region are unclear. Here we use stable-carbon and -nitrogen isotope analysis of bulk epidermal tissue from 718 green turtles distributed among 16 foraging areas from the US to Chile to determine isotopic niche space. We also use compound-specific δ15N analysis of amino acids of 21 turtles from seven of these sites to decipher the baseline influence on stable isotope values as well as to describe the trophic position of green turtles. Our findings support that green sea turtles are opportunistic omnivores whose diets adapt to local prey bases; our data also confirm that local isotope values are influenced by broad-scale nitrogen cycling patterns as well as local-scale anthropogenic impacts. To our knowledge, this is the largest database of stable isotope values ever assembled for a marine species. Our study underscores the value of individual and institutional collaboration across multiple countries and will hopefully provide an example for others to follow around the world. ______________________________________________________________________________ 0218 HL/SSAR/ASIH Symposium - The Science, Management, and Policy of Amphibian Conservation: Extending the Legacy of Ray Semlitsch, Saturday 15 July 2017 Raymond Semlitsch1, Susan Walls2, Jamie Barichivich2, Katherine O'Donnell2 1University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA, 2US Geological Survey, Gainesville, Florida, USA A Comprehensive Multi-level Approach to Preventing Amphibian Extinction A comprehensive view of population declines and their underlying causes is necessary to reverse species loss. Historically, in many cases, a narrow view may have allowed species declines to continue, virtually undetected, for long periods