Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Three faculty members and two graduate students in Mississippi State's College of Forest Resources are being honored by The Wildlife Society, Mississippi Chapter.
Competing among a field of 13, wildlife and fisheries doctoral candidate Dawn H. Manning of Starkville recently received the best student visual display award. Under the direction of associate wildlife and fisheries professor Jeanne Jones, Manning's research deals with mourning dove use of cornfields grazed by cattle.
Master's student Sarah Fleming, also of Starkville, received the best student oral presentation award. She was selected from a field of nine for her work on management of wetland reserve program lands in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley.
Fleming is completing her research under the direction of wildlife and fisheries professor Richard M. Kaminski.
Kaminski was recognized by the state organization with an award for the best article in a peer-reviewed research journal. Colleagues Stephen Dinsmore and Ken Reinecke, along with former graduate student Aaron Pearse, shared the writing honors.
Their Journal of Wildlife Management entry was based on Pearse's dissertation on the use of aerial surveys to estimate the number of wintering ducks in Mississippi.
Assistant professor Bronson Strickland and professor Steve Demarais were cited for the best article in a popular publication. Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks biologist William McKinley was their co-author for "Managing Bucks Means Managing Expectations."
Published in Quality Whitetails, the piece explains the differences in antler growth on soil type and region.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.