Symposium Summary: Third Mississippi-Yangtze River Basins Symposium (MYRIBS): Large River Basin Fishery Resources and Environment

Sponsors: AFS Fisheries Management Section, Water Quality Section, International Fisheries Section, China Society of Fisheries, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund

This symposium is a continuation of the Mississippi-Yangtze River Basins Symposium (MYRIBS) series which started in Little Rock, Arkansas, during the 2013 American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting and continued in Wuhan, Hubei, China during the 2015 China Society of Fisheries Fishery Resources and Environment annual meeting. The 3rd MYRBIS in Kansas City presented many methods and techniques, such as electrofishing, the unified fishing method, different gears to sample Asian carps, and molecular methods that have been applied in managing and conserving large river basin fishery resources and environment globally. A total of eight Chinese researchers and students, along with many U.S. colleagues, attended the symposium. Before the symposium, colleagues at USGS Columbia Environmental Research Center, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and University of Missouri at Columbia kindly offered field visits to Illinois River, Mississippi River, and Missouri River, and corresponding facility tours for Chinese colleagues. After the symposium, a group synthesis and discussion was conducted to discuss the achievements and future plans. The group tentatively decided the time and location for the 4th MYRIBS: Fall 2018 in the Upper Yangtze River, China. The symposium is open to all AFS members and friends who have interests in river basin management and international collaborations. Read the abstracts here.

—Yushun Chen, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences