Kevin S Cummings

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | UIUC · Illinois Natural History Survey

Freshwater mussels are one of the most imperilled animal groups in the world. Their effective conservation and restoration require a better understanding of their spatial distributions at a relevant scale and of their relationships with natural environmental factors and human disturbances. In this study, we sampled over 900 sites on wadeable stream...

Freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionoida) are interesting because of their unique life cycles, global aggregate distribution and ancient origin. They are also of practical importance due to their worldwide, imperiled status. Of utmost utility for their continued study are a modern assessment of global and regional species diversity and a natural cla...

The Palaeoheterodonta is a diverse clade consisting of the freshwater bivalve order Unionoida and its marine sister group, Neotrigonia. Neotrigonia is the sole surviving genus of the Trigonioida, known from only six species in Australian waters. Unionoids (freshwater mussels), in contrast, are widespread on all continents except Antarctica and are...

Nonindigenous aquatic species (NAS), some of which are referred to as aquatic invasive species (AIS) or non-native aquatic species, are those aquatic organisms that have become established beyond their native ranges. They often inhabit a variety of habitats and physicochemical conditions, reach high densities, and alter ecosystem function. Understa...

Fish hosts are critical for freshwater mus- sels. However, correlation between mussel and fish species richness (SR) is variable. Here, we examine how the environment affects this variability. We cal- culated mussel–fish SR ratios for 459 stream sites to capture the different responses of mussel and fish SR to environmental variables. We used Rando...

Species distribution models (SDMs) are an increasingly important tool for conservation particularly for difficult-to-study locations and with understudied fauna. Our aims were to (1) use SDMs and ensemble SDMs to predict the distribution of freshwater mussels in the Pánuco River Basin in Central México; (2) determine habitat factors shaping freshwa...

Understanding the status and distribution of species is fundamental for conservation. However, recent genetic work has challenged the known distributions of some unionid taxa. The recognized range of the Louisiana Fatmucket Lampsilis hydiana spans watersheds from east Texas northward to southern Arkansas and eastward to western Mississippi. Specime...

With the biodiversity crisis continuing unchecked, we need to establish levels and drivers of extinction risk, and reassessments over time, to effectively allocate conservation resources and track progress towards global conservation targets. Given that threat appears particularly high in freshwaters, we assessed the extinction risk of 1428 randoml...

The objective of this review is to update our previously published checklist of Recent freshwater mussel species and genera (Graf & Cummings, 2007, J. Molluscan Stud.: 291–314) to reflect the new data and research findings that have accumulated over the last decade. The MUSSEL Project Database was developed to synthesize the available taxonomic nom...

The tribes Contradentini and Rectidentini (Unionidae) comprise a diverse clade of freshwater mussels endemic to South-east Asia. Our understanding of the diversity and phylogeny of this radiation has improved dramatically in recent years, but this systematic transformation has not yet benefited from comprehensive museum sampling or phylogenomic met...

The Gulf coastal drainages of central Mexico are a faunal transition zone between North and South America and harbor a unique assemblage of freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionida). However, little information is available regarding the taxonomy, distribution, and evolutionary history of the Mexican mussel fauna due to limited sampling over the last...

Before this study, researchers had not systematically surveyed the Río Conchos, a tributary of the Rio Grande located in northern Mexico, for freshwater mussels. The Texas hornshell, Popenaias popeii, an endangered species under the United States Endangered Species Act, occurs in the main stem of the Rio Grande near its confluence with the Río Conc...

Touching on 34 families of freshwater gastropods and 9 families of freshwater bivalves, each chapter provides a synthesis of the latest research on the diversity and evolutionary relationships of the family, a representative figure and distribution map.

During a pilot survey, sponges and mollusks were sampled from the bottom of the middle Xingu River (rapids) and lower Xingu River (ria) via hand-picking in shallows and trawling and surface-supplied dives in deeper waters. The survey revealed a benthic community composed of eight sponge species in four genera and three families, and added six speci...

The Indotropical freshwater mussel assemblage has more genera of uncertain subfamily-level position (i.e. genera incertae sedis) than all other regional faunas. Of the 16 genera incertae sedis in the Indotropics, only two, Harmandia and Unionetta, are distributed in the mainland southeast Asia subregion. Resolving the enigmatic systematic position...

The Indotropical freshwater mussel assemblage has more genera of uncertain subfamily-level position (i.e. genera incertae sedis) than all other regional faunas. Of the 16 genera incertae sedis in the Indotropics, only two, Harmandia and Unionetta, are distributed in the mainland southeast Asia subregion. Resolving the enigmatic systematic position...

We present a revised list of freshwater mussels (order Unionida, families Margaritiferidae and Unionidae) of the United States and Canada, incorporating changes in nomenclature and systematic taxonomy since publication of the most recent checklist in 1998. We recognize a total of 298 species in 55 genera in the families Margaritiferidae (one genus,...

Freshwater mussels are considered one of the most imperiled aquatic species groups in the USA. One of the challenges in protecting and restoring mussel biodiversity effectively is a lack of understanding of their natural distributions at relevant spatial scales. Without this information, assessing the current status of individual species and overal...

The Great Lakes watershed is one of the most invaded freshwater ecosystems, making early and rapid detection of new invaders critical to reduce their effects on this fragile system. The genus Corbicula, freshwater clams native to the temperate/tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Australia, contains some of the most common and successful aquatic n...

The Great Lakes watershed is one of the most invaded freshwater ecosystems, making early and rapid detection of new invaders critical to reduce their effects on this fragile system. The genus Corbicula, freshwater clams native to the temperate/tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Australia, contains some of the most common and successful aquatic n...

The second volume in this landmark series includes an introductory chapter followed by 15 taxonomically specific chapters with identification keys to Nearctic freshwater invertebrates (protozoa through arthropods). Other than the second chapter's treatment of the diverse, multi-phyla array of protozoa (ciliates, flagellates, and amoebas), each of t...

We sampled freshwater mussels at 12 sites centered around three lowhead dams in the Vermilion River basin (Wabash River drainage) to address their effects on the freshwater mussel fauna and to obtain baseline data prior to their removal. Compared with reference sites, impounded areas and plunge zones had lower mussel abundance and extant species ri...

Two native groups represent the freshwater bivalves of North America: the freshwater mussels (Unionoidea) and the pill, fingernail, and pea clams (Sphaeriidae). There are also two widely publicized invasive genera, Corbicula and Dreissena. These mollusks have interesting and important ecological interactions with their environments, not the least o...

Illinois Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Preservation Fund Grant/Contract No: RC08-L20W INHS Technical Report Prepared for Illinois Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Preservation Fund

Freshwater mussels perform critical ecosystem functions and provide many valuable ecological services. However, anthropogenic effects have severely decreased mussel diversity and abundance at both local and regional scales. Understanding how human disturbances, particularly landuse change, and fish assemblages are related to mussel assemblages is e...

Lithasia armigera (Armored Rocksnail) historically occurred in the Cumberland, Ohio, and Tennessee river drainages of eastern North America, whereas Lithasia verrucosa (Verrucose Rocksnail) is known from the Ohio, Tennessee, and Black river drainages. Prior to our 24-27 September 2012 surveys; neither species had been recorded from the Mississippi...

Northern riffleshell (Epioblasma rangiana) and clubshell (Pleurobema clava) are two federally-endangered freshwater mussels that were historically present throughout the upper Ohio River and Lake Erie drainages. The joint recovery plan, approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USWFS) in 1994, listed an objective of establishing viable popula...

Fresh-dead specimens of the freshwater mussel Bankclimber Plectomerus dombeyanus (Valenciennes, 1827) were discovered in the Il-linois portion of the Ohio River near America, Pulaski County, Illinois, at river mile 970 (37.12104N, 89.11468W) during the summer of 2012. The specimens were deposited in the Illinois Natural History Survey Mollusk Colle...

The objective of this study was to assess freshwater mussel (Mollusca: Bivalvia: Unionoida) species distributions among the freshwater ecoregions of Africa and Madagascar to discover areas of high richness and endemism. These are among the top criteria for identifying biodiversity hotspots and establishing conservation priorities. Distributions wer...

Freshwater mussels are one of the most imperiled groups of animals in North America. Effective resource management and conservation efforts require reliable estimates of species diversity and their distributions. However, sampling protocols for qualitative mussel surveys have not been well established and tested. Furthermore, the sampling effort re...

Freshwater mollusks are among the most rapidly declining groups of organisms on Earth. Several species of aquatic gastropods, especially those in the family Pleuroceridae, are rare globally, but not much was known about their distribution and status in Illinois. We inspected museum collection holdings, conducted literature reviews on Illinois mollu...

This chapter introduces general biology, morphology, ecology, physiology, life histories, evolution, and classification of bivalve molluscs found in freshwaters of North America. The freshwater bivalves of North America are represented by two native groups, the freshwater mussels (Unionoidea) and the pill, fingernail, and pea clams (Sphaeriidae), a...

We report on a recently discovered population of the freshwater snail Lithasia geniculata (Ornate Rocksnail) (Gastropoda: Pleuroceridae) from the Ohio River, IL, the first documented occurrence for this species outside the Tennessee and Cumberland river basins. We collected 14 individuals on 26–27 August 2008 from the Ohio River, near Mound City, P...

INTRODUCTIONHoeh, Bogan, Heard & Chapman (2009; hereafter HBHC) raise a number of important criticisms of our recent analysis of family-level relationships among the lineages of the Palaeoheterodonta, Graf & Cummings (2006; hereafter G&C). We are pleased to have our conclusions scrutinized from other perspec-tives. HBHC also raise a number of quest...

The nonindigenous mottled fingernail clam, Eupera cubensis is reported from the Upper Mississippi River Basin for the first time. This record represents a significant northern range expansion for the species in the United States. It appears to be presently confined to a 35-km stretch of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC), an artificial wate...

Madagascar is widely recognized as a biodiversity hotspot, but the freshwater bivalves have received only limited recent attention. Based upon examination of records from 15 major museums and a literature review, at least nine species of freshwater mussels (Mollusca: Bivalvia: Unionoida) have been reported from either Madagascar or the Mascarene Is...

Freshwater mussels were sampled in the upper Mackinaw River basin, Illinois, for five years to determine if a single, one-hour visit was enough to adequately characterize the species richness at a headwater stream site when using the timed search technique. Eight sites were each handpicked for one person-hour every year, and species richness was ca...

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Quantitative methods for assessing the health of a natural history collection are of paramount importance for prioritizing the investment of time and resources and ensuring the long-term stability and usability of a collection's invaluable specimens.

The aquatic fauna of the Angola region in southwestern Africa, including the Cuanza (= Kwanza), Cunene, Okavango, upper Zambezi, Cassai (= Kasai) and lower Congo basins, is poorly known. The freshwater mussels (Mollusca: Unionoida) of the region have received little attention, and then usually as fringes to the Congo and Zambezi-Okavango systems. A...

Invertebrate species represent more than 99% of animal diversity; however, they receive much less publicity and attract disproportionately minor research effort relative to vertebrates. Nonmarine mollusks (i.e., terrestrial and freshwater) are one of the most diverse and imperiled groups of animals, although not many people other than a few special...

INHS Technical Report prepared for Nature Conservancy Central Illinois Field Office

Doubt regarding the history of phylogenesis within the Unionoida have hampered attempts to understand evolution within the group and to establish a stable classification system. To test alternative hypotheses of unionoid phylogeny, 630 base pairs of DNA sequence for the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COl) gene were obtained from 30 species represe...

The Vermilion River drainage, especially the North Fork Vermilion River, supports one of the most diverse mussel faunas in Illinois. During 1996-1998, a survey was conducted in the Middle Branch, the largest tributary of the North Fork. Twenty-two species were recorded as extant in the river, including 9 state-threatened or endangered species. The...

When introduced species threaten native flora and fauna, protection requires an analysis of the risk that native species face from the spread of the introduced species. Models of invading species, however, of ten do not include a dynamic component of risk. North American freshwater mussels are at risk of fouling by the introduced zebra mussel (Drei...

Historically the North Fork Vermilion River supported at least 30 mussel species. Twenty-three species are currently extant in the drainage including 5 state listed species (Lampsilis fasciola, Quadrula cylindrica, Toxolasma lividus, Villosa iris, and Villosa lienosa), 3 of which have their last remaining Illinois population in the North Fork Vermi...

Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin Volumen 35, Article 5, October 1997 Incluye bibliografía e índice

Fragmentation has been identified as a major cause of declines in species diversity for many terrestrial ecosystems (reviewed by Saunders 1991). Much less empirical information is available on the effects of fragmentation on freshwater species and communities (Bradford et al. 1993, Townsend and Crowl 1991). Fragmentation in streams (i.e., a lack of...

ID: 8758; issued November 1, 1996 INHS Technical Report prepared for Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Division of Natural Heritage

The American Fisheries Society (AFS) herein provides a list of all native freshwater mussels (families Margaritiferidae and Unionidae) in the United States and Canada. This report also provides state and provincial distributions; a comprehensive review of the conservation status of all taxa; and references on biology, conservation, and distribution...

Cover title. "July 1991." Includes bibliographical references (p. 17-19).

Fishes are difficult to photograph for a variety of reasons. Ideally, they should be photographed alive and in their natural environments. However, few of us can manage the time and aquatic skills necessary to accomplish that. Also, many species live in turbid water or at insufficient depths to accommodate underwater photography. Live fishes in aqu...

Cover title. "December 1984." Bibliography: p. 15-16.

The Hoosier-Shawnee Ecological Assessment Area, part of the Coastal Plain and Interior Low Plateau physiographic provinces, includes 194 native fish species, 76 native mussel species, and 34 native crayfish species. Five of the subregions (e.g., Mississippi Embayment) that make up the assessment area were recently ranked as either globally or biore...

ID: 8309 INHS Technical Report prepared for Division of Natural Heritage. Illinois Department of Natural Resources.