[RP TownTalk] Fwd: 2nd Saturday Lecture on the Chesapeake Bay

[Kate Kelly]

This came across today from a friend in University Park. All are welcome.


*Friends and neighbors,*

*I am pleased to announce the opportunity to have two experts who will talk
about our beloved Bay.  As usual the lecture will be held at the University
Park Church of the Brethren at 4413 Tuckerman St. University Park at 5pm.
This month it is Saturday September 8th.*


*See their bios and descriptions of their presentations below.  Tell your
friends or place on your respective listserves.  Any questions, please call
me at 301-779-3168. Thanks.*

*Dave Brosch*


*David Tana, *

*Maryland Outreach Manager*

* Chesapeake Bay Foundation*


*Bio*

A Maryland (and Prince George’s County) native who grew up exploring the
Chesapeake Bay watershed, David Tana graduated from the University of
Maryland, College Park with a Bachelor’s in Anthropology and a minor in
Geology.  He spent several years in elementary education before returning
to the University of Maryland to work as an academic advisor.  While there
he became actively involved in the Alternative Break Program, and began
leading university students on week long service-learning experiences.  It
was through an experience with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) that he
first visited (and fell in love with) the Philip Merrill Environmental
Center, and decided CBF was the place he wanted to work.  He volunteered
with the MD Restoration team for about four years before landing his
current position.  He now works as the Maryland Outreach Manager with
Environmental Protection and Restoration staff to recruit, organize, and
lead CBF volunteers in the field at restoration and grassroots events.  He
is also a certified Maryland Master Naturalist, and likes to play with
gorillas and dig up dinosaurs in his spare time.


*Presentation Summary*

Comprised of parts of six states and the District of Columbia, the
Chesapeake Bay Watershed contains 64,000 square miles of land that drain
into a relatively small body of water. Changes to the ecosystem in the last
400 years have resulted in a system that is dangerously out of balance. The
Chesapeake Bay Foundation is working to restore that system through
education, restoration, advocacy, and litigation. I will discuss some
background information and then dive into land use changes like agriculture
and deforestation, environmental policies surrounding them, and what
residents of University Park can do to help Save the Bay.


*Maile Neel*

*Professor*

*Director, Norton-Brown Herbarium*

*Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture &*

*Department of Entomology*

*2116 Plant Sciences Building*

*University of Maryland*

<http://alyxia.umd.edu>


*Bio*

Maile’s entire career has been devoted to the discipline of conservation
biology, especially as it applies to plants. She seeks to understand the
maintenance, loss, and restoration of the earth’s biological diversity, and
to use this understanding to help conserve diversity in the face of adverse
human impacts. After earning a B.S. in Conservation Biology at Humboldt
State University, she spent nearly a decade working in conservation
practice as a botanist for the U.S.D.A. Forest Service. Increasingly
frustrated by the dearth of available science on which to base management
decisions, she obtained a Master’s degree from University of California
Santa Barbara and then a Ph.D. from University of California Riverside
studying rare plant species and communities.

Her goals as an academic researcher are to expand the evidence base for
describing and explaining biological diversity and to understand the
effectiveness of alternative approaches to conserving that diversity. Her
research is directed at the most important problems that practitioners
face, and she conveys her results such that they provide specific,
practical guidance for conservation policy and management.


*Presentation Summary*


The Chesapeake Bay is an ecological treasure and has been the economic
engine of the region since the people first colonized. Decades of poor
water quality and several major storms eliminated much of the foundational
plant species in the Bay.  These species, such as the submersed aquatic
plant species wild celery (*Vallisneria americana*), provide many critical
ecosystem functions and services.  A common consequence of such impacts to
species is loss of genetic diversity, and these losses can have
far-reaching consequences for ecosystem function and species resilience --
without genetic diversity populations have no capacity to adapt or
acclimate to changing environmental conditions. We began studying the wild
celery when the populations were still mostly small and ephemeral to
understand how much genetic diversity remained and how that diversity
affects ecological functions.

We have genotyped individuals from populations throughout the Bay and have
and cultured a subset of the individuals. We use these individuals in
greenhouse experiments designed to test the effects of genotype richness on
growth, productivity and reproductive potential of individuals and
populations. Some examples of observations of variation in genetic and
functional characteristics across populations will be presented. In the
last few years this species has begun to rebound as water clarity has
increased due to implementation of the water quality standards. Ongoing
research is focused on assessing how interacting ecological and genetic
processes affect the prospects for future resilience in the Chesapeake Bay
will also be discussed.
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