| Affiliations: | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
| Project Leader: | Amanda Beckman akb13@tamu.edu Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
| Faculty Mentor: | Dr. Michael Morrison, Ph.D. |
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Meeting Times:
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TBD |
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Team Size:
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4 (Team Full) |
| Open Spots: | 0 |
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Special Opportunities:
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Learning radio-telemetry techniques, learning different behavioral and ecological field methods, possibility for co-author on publication. In Fall 2019 weekly meetings will take place to discuss scientific literature, trapping methods, and permitting processes. We will also practice using drop nets, and gain experience handling birds. January-April 2020 turkey trapping will take place in South Texas. Transportation and housing will be provided. Transportation can be provided to/from College Station and/or Kingsville. Students that are available more than three weeks may have the opportunity to complete an independent project
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Team Needs:
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Priority will go to students that will be available for at least three weeks January-April 2020 to go to South Texas for field work (signing up for a research credit in spring is not required). Field work will include tracking turkeys via radio telemetry and working as a team to perform behavioral observations, so you must be comfortable working outdoors in a relatively remote field site. Current students or students that have a degree in any life science field may apply
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Description:
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Cooperative display coalitions, groups where an alpha male mates but one or more males assist in attracting females, occur in some animal mating systems. Coalitions of male Rio Grande Wild Turkeys are an ideal system to investigate how cooperation may vary in groups of individuals varying in relatedness. Promiscuous males and females can lead to some coalitions being made up of brothers, half-brothers, or unrelated individuals. This project will investigate how relatedness between individuals influences behavior, parasite presence, and ability to attract females. Turkeys will be captured with drop nets so a blood sample can be obtained, and wing tags with unique numbers will be attached to each turkey for behavioral observations. This study will provide new information about cooperation, and the behavior of Wild Turkeys
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