<div dir="ltr"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div>This came across today from a friend in University Park. All are welcome.<br></div><br><br><u></u>
<div><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong>Friends and neighbors,</strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong>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.</strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong><br></strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong>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.</strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong>Dave Brosch</strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong><br></strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong>David Tana, </strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong>Maryland Outreach Manager</strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong> Chesapeake Bay Foundation</strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong><u><br></u></strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong><u>Bio</u></strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal">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.</p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong><u><br></u></strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong><u>Presentation Summary</u></strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal">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.</p><p><strong><br></strong></p><p><strong>Maile Neel</strong></p><p><strong>Professor</strong></p><p><strong>Director, Norton-Brown Herbarium</strong></p><p><strong>Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture &</strong></p><p><strong>Department of Entomology</strong></p><p><strong>2116 Plant Sciences Building</strong></p><p><strong>University of Maryland</strong></p><p><a href="http://alyxia.umd.edu" target="_blank"></a></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Bio</strong></p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p><strong><u><br></u></strong></p><p><strong><u>Presentation Summary</u></strong></p><p><strong><br></strong></p><p>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 (<em>Vallisneria americana</em>), 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.</p><p>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.</p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"><strong><br></strong></p><p class="m_-1810782158434557928ox-cc2b30ac46-ox-8159805886-ox-08b6053634-MsoNormal"></p></div>
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