Blandings turtle emydoidea blandingii is a species of conservation concern across its american andcanadian ranges and is petitioned for listing under the endangered species act ESA

This $367,734.26 Project Grant awarded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Fish and Aquatic Conservation - Aquatic Invasive Species (CFDA 15.608) program will fund a comprehensive study of the genetic population structure and health of Blanding's turtles in the Great Lakes region. The primary objectives are to: 1) Quantify the redundancy of Blanding's turtle populations by identifying distinct genetic conservation units; 2) Assess the resiliency of populations by evaluating genetic diversity, effective population sizes, and inbreeding levels; 3) Integrate Great Lakes samples into a rangewide genetic database to support anti-poaching efforts; and 4) Identify genetic corridors and habitats to bolster Blanding's turtle recovery. The awardee, Tangled Bank Conservation, will produce a detailed report on the population structure and health, make geospatial data on genetic connectivity available to agencies, create a genomic database for confiscated turtles, and disseminate findings through publications and stakeholder meetings. This project aims to provide critical information to support Blanding's turtle conservation and management across the Great Lakes region.

We will sequence thousands of genomic loci from hundreds of blandings turtles across the great lakes region to create a durable conservation plan for the species anchored in the resiliency redundancy and representation the 3RS.objectives:1QUANTIFY redundancy by identifying genetic populations conservation units distinct population segments of blandings turtles across the great lakes region.2. Assess the resiliency of populations by evaluating population health in terms of genetic diversity effective population sizes and inbreeding levels and bolster resilience and redundancy of populations by mapping areas of high gene flow among and within populations to promote functional habitat corridors in the great lakes region.3. Integrate great lakes samples into a rangewide genetic database to fight poaching and quantify our ability to assign an unknown sample to its population of origin within the great LAKES4. Identify genetic corridors habitats and build antipoaching tools in a focused effort to supportblandings turtle recovery. Through this grant we will directly address threats that managers havepreviously identified and we will generate information that will be integral for any future management orrecovery plans and efforts for blandings turtle. Deliverables:1. Create a comprehensive report outlining population structure levels of genetic diversity effective population sizes and levels of inbreeding in blandings turtles in the great lakes. The report will address the key actions from the states state wide action plansspecifically increasing habitat connectivity identifying highquality habitat abating road mortality and combating poaching. The report will be made available to all state and provincial agencies and presented to state and federal officials at the blandings turtle working group meetings.2. We will make the raster products and geographic information system layers from our genetic connectivity corridors available to state and federal agencies so that they can be integrated into conservation and management plans.3. Create a genomic database of reference blandings turtles that can be used to identify confiscated blandings turtles. We will coordinate with state provincial and federal agencies to ensure that confiscated blandings turtles are compared to this genomic database in the future see below.4. Produce multiple peerreviewed publications and graduate student theses from this project. We anticipate one paper outlining the population structure and one paper on health objectives. 5. Host an inperson blandings turtles working group meeting that brings together provincial state federal and academic individuals working on blandings turtle conservation. This meeting will focus on 1 disseminating our results on the population structure and health of blandings turtle populations and 2 creating a framework for identifying and repatriating confiscated turtles.