The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is a government agency in the state of Maryland charged with maintaining natural resources including state parks, public lands, state forests, state waterways, wildlife and recreation areas. Its headquarters are in Annapolis.
As coastal communities face increasing flood risks, decision-makers require actionable and trusted information that links scientific projections to local contexts. In climate resilience, co-production serves as a strategy to enhance the practical use of decision-support tools through multiple engagement phases between the tool developer and the intended tool user. We present a case study for co-production with the Maryland Coastal Flood Explorer, an interactive platform that visualizes localized flood risks. We share how the tool was shaped by input from local and state flood resilience professionals through interviews, focus groups, and surveys. Specifically, we investigate: (1) What conditions made this collaborative approach possible? (2) How did co-production drive tool development decisions? (3) How did co-production build trust and increase tool adoption? The co-production process added value by allowing the project to move from a broad tool purpose to specific design decisions that directly reflected end-user priorities. Our findings show that co-production improved the tool’s relevance, credibility, and likelihood of implementation among users while strengthening relationships and fostering collaboration. Achieving this “buy-in” required adding expertise, extending timelines, and confronting tradeoffs in user preferences. Furthermore, sustained commitment is necessary to ensure the tool evolves as adaptation needs change.
Wood Turtle (Glyptemys insculpta) populations are declining in many portions of the species’ native range due to multiple factors that might influence functional connectivity and population genetic structure. We used 13 microsatellite markers to examine patterns of genetic structure in the Wood Turtle across its native range in Eastern and Midwestern North America. For n = 45 collections with 15 or more individuals (total N = 1,258), multiple clustering approaches revealed two major genetic groups corresponding to the midwestern and eastern collections. Interestingly, a sample from lower Michigan clustered with the Eastern group while a sample from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan clustered with the Midwestern group. Evidence of gene flow between these two major groups arose from the most proximate sites near the edges of each group. These results suggest that Lake Superior and Lake Michigan were historically substantial (but perhaps not complete) barriers to gene flow. Our results suggest that Evolutionarily Significant Unit (ESU) status is warranted for Midwestern and Eastern Wood Turtles in North America. Within the eastern group, we observed a strong pattern of clinal allele frequency variation, with evidence of incipient genetic differentiation between multiple collections from the Potomac and Monongahela Rivers from collections in river basins further to the north. Estimation of full-sibling families indicated a range of distance between close family members of 16.8–301 km, suggesting the possibility of extremely long-distance (though rare) dispersal. Mean expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.553 to 0.722 and allelic richness ranged from 4.1 to 6.8. For a species with such a long generation interval (approximately 40 years (yrs)), isolated populations on the low end of this range of both measures of genetic variation might suffer from negative fitness effects of inbreeding and warrant further monitoring efforts. Our results support the management of this species at, or within, the Hydrologic Unit Code-4 (HUC4) subregion scale.
Invasive channel catfish ( Ictalurus punctatus ) threaten native fishes in the San Juan River (southwestern USA), prompting the initiation of a removal program in the 1990s. Over nearly three decades, however, exploitation rates have been insufficient to cause meaningful population decline, highlighting the need for improved management strategies. Identifying seasonal movement patterns and spatial aggregations of channel catfish may provide insight towards more targeted and effective removal efforts. We quantified seasonal patterns in distribution and movement using radio telemetry from 2023-2024 and mark-recapture data from 2011-2015. Additionally, we identified spawning periodicity by comparing water temperature and activity data recovered from archival radio transmitters and by estimating back-calculated spawning dates obtained via young-of-year otoliths. Short upstream movements in 2023 occurred prior to a decline in discharge and daily mean water temperatures reaching 21°C but increased thereafter, whereas movement in 2024 was more variable and began at lower temperatures. Generalized linear mixed models suggested a positive relationship between movement rates and total length and a modal relationship between movement rates and water temperature with predicted maximum movement rate at 20.8°C. Mark-recapture data revealed interannual variation in movement with higher movement rates in years with the lowest discharge. Modal activity patterns observed in 10 of 12 archive-tagged fish peaked at an average of 21.3°C. Although we found little evidence of aggregation, synchronized upstream movement was likely cued by water temperatures ~21°C, and reduced discharge may provide the opportunity for resource managers to use passive sampling techniques to intercept moving channel catfish.
Corynorhinus townsendii virginianus (Virginia Big-eared Bat) is a federally endangered subspecies of Corynorhinus townsendii (Townsend's Big-eared Bat) found in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. We recorded 30 files identified as Corynorhinus at 7 locations in western Maryland. We manually vetted files and sent them to acoustic experts familiar with Corynorhinus spp. Based on these records, we document the expansion of Virginia Big-eared Bats into Maryland, which constitutes a new state record.
