3.13.6 Freshwater Mussels
The Freshwater Mussel Taxa Team reevaluated 12 mussel species for consideration of conservation need, knowledge gap, and management need/concern priorities. There were several species for which there were calculation errors from the 2015 NCWAP comprehensive revision that were not caught during the review process. The calculation errors were made for scores associated with the conservation threat assessment metrics 9.1 through 9.11. The reevaluation and metric score corrections resulted in the addition of 10 species to the SGCN priority list. The reevaluation also resulted in the addition of one new species to the Knowledge Gap priority list and the addition of one species and removal of two other species from the Management Needs/Concerns priority list. All Taxa Team reevaluation results and changes to the priority species lists are provided in a table in Appendix GA1-1. Minor revisions have also been made to incorporate state or federal listing status changes. In May 2018, the USFWS listed the Yellow Lance as threatened under the Endangered Species Act with a special rule issued under section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act (USFWS 2019c). The USFWS also proposes to designate Critical Habitat in North Carolina (USFWS 2020), which if finalized as proposed, would include approximately 319 river miles currently occupied by Yellow Lance in the Chowan, Tar and Neuse river basins. A compendium of common and scientific names of freshwater mussels in the United States was published by the American Fisheries Society (AFS) in (Turgeon et al. 1998). Nomenclature provided in this publication has been widely accepted by species experts. Scientific naming convention updates proposed by Williams et al. (2017) includes the reassignment of genus for James Spinymussel and Tar River Spinymussel from Elliptio to Parvaspina . Both species are federally listed as endangered species. The USFWS currently recognizes James Spinymussel as Pleurobema collina and Tar River Spinymussel as Elliptio steinstansana . The Taxa Team recommends retaining the genus name Elliptio until the USFWS publishes a revision to the scientific name or until species experts accept the reassignment to Parvaspina as genus. Table 3A1-5 is a list of the changes to SGCN status included in this minor update to the 2015 NCWAP. The list provides federal/state listing status as well as Regional SGCN status designated by SEAFWA. Red text is used to indicate the changes made in this update. A complete updated list of all SGCN is provided in Appendix PA1.
3A1- 12
2020 Addendum NC Wildlife Action Plan
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