American Malacological Society 83rd Annual Meeting Summary

Charles Lydeard, Elizabeth K. Shea, and Amanda Lawless

The American Malacological Society recently held its 83^rd annual meeting this past July at Clayton Hall of the University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware.  The meeting was hosted by AMS President Liz Shea of the Delaware Museum of Natural History.  The formal meeting was preceded with a workshop organized by Petra Sierwald, Rüdiger Bieler, Gary Rosenberg and Liz Shea and sponsored by an iDigBIo Conference Award entitled Digitizing the 2^nd largest Invertebrate Phylum: Mollusks.  The meeting kicked off with the President’s Symposium, which continued along with the workshop theme Mollusk research in a digital world: creating, integrating and mining large datasets and had presentations by Bieler et al., Rosenberg and Khoo, Vendetti et al, Zigler, and Vecchione.  José Leal organized a symposium entitled Mollusks in Peril and Heather Judkins organized one entitled Cephalopod Biodiversity.  The meeting had nearly 100 registered participants and the talks were all well attended including sessions on biodiversity with several presentations including one on malacology underground by Gladstone et al.; Phylogeny & Systematics with several presentations including one by Graf; Mollusk Collections with one by Callomon; Dispersal, Feeding Strategies, and Historical Ecology.  The evenings were also terrific opportunities to continue interacting with friends and colleagues including the reception at Stone Balloon on Main Street, an Auction, and an excellent cookout, which was held at the Delaware Museum of Natural History.  Field excursion opportunities also were provided for those who were able to stay the day after the meetings.  All in all, it was a terrific meeting and a great time for all. 

If you couldn’t make this meeting, perhaps you can go next year when, the meeting will be hosted by AMS President 2017-2018, Norine Yeung of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Hawaii.  See you there!