Warren Conway, chair of the Department of Natural Resources Management, added that the program featured 11 three-minute thesis presentations as part of a luncheon program. Following that was plenary speaker Clint Boal, a professor of wildlife biology and assistant leader of the USGS Texas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit in Lubbock. His discussion was titled: "Hurricanes Blow: Understanding Weather Influences on Caribbean Avifauna.”

Winners of the 3MT presentations were:

• Doctoral candidate Ángela Alviz of Bogota, Columbia (First Place) Distribution And Habitat Use of the Lowland Tapir (Tapirus Terrestris) in the Colombian Orinoquia
• Doctoral candidate Sean Sutor of Robbinsville, New Jersey (Second Place) Predicting Tortoise Movement Through the Landscape: Using High-Resolution GPS Data to Inform Landscape Connectivity Models
• Doctoral candidate Hayden Hays of Haslet (Third Place) Distribution and Habitat Use of Kisatchie Painted Crayfish in Northeast Texas with Investigation of Multi-Scale Environmental Influences on Crayfish Community Structure

Individuals winning in the graduate poster competition were:

• Doctoral candidate Erin Stukenholtz of Lubbock (First Place) Variability in the Relationship of Grinnellian and Eltonian Niche Characteristics and Passerine Distributions Across Spatial Scales
• Master’s student Bailey Robertory of Fairfax, Virginia (Second Place) The Crayfish-Prey Fish Complex: Assessing the Interactions of Piscivorous Brown Trout (Salmo Trutta), Northern Crayfish (Orconectes Virilis), and a Sensitive Fish Assemblage
• Master’s student Kaitlin Plate of San Angelo (Third Place) Particle Size Distribution of Zebra Mussel Environmental DNA in a Texas Reservoir

Undergraduate students taking top honors in the poster competition were:

•  Andrew Dotray (First Place) Effect of Estimated Fecal Age and Sample Storage Techniques on Coyote DNA Amplification in the Mojave Desert Region
• H. Steven Iida (Second Place) An Analysis of Vegetation Structure Across Habitat Types in the Rolling Plains
• Tyler Brimager (Third Place) Seasonal Evaluation of Nutritional Value and Digestibility of Bluestem Species

Other NRM students presenting their research were:

Poster Session I

• Derek Malone –  Assessing Texas Kangaroo Rat Habitat Management and Population Connectivity
• Kathryn Fuller –  Ecological Drivers of Fuel Structure in South-Eastern Australia Derived from Space-Borne Lidar  
• Sarah Vrla –  A Trait Evolution Analysis of Ultraviolet Reflective Morphology in Mammals
• Angela Grogan - Assessing Genetic Susceptibility of Pronghorn (Antilocapra Americana) to Prion Diseases Through PRNP Gene Sequencing
• Melody Harrington – A Potentially Important Bias in Studies of Carnivore Diets: Coprophagy by Invertebrates  
• Annie Brack  – An Assessment of Small Mammal Diversity, Population Demography, Occupancy, and Damage Among Three Row Crop Irrigation Systems on the Southern High Plains
• Matthew Buchholz – Population Density of Axis Deer and White-Tailed Deer on the Edwards Plateau
• John Stuhler – Impacts of a Half Century of Anthropogenic Change on Taxonomic and Functional Diversity of Rodent Communities
• Shisbeth Tábora-Sarmiento – Air, Land, and Water Variables Associated with the First Appearance and Current Spatial Distribution of Toxic Prymnesium Parvum Blooms in Reservoirs of the Southern Great Plains, USA  
• Ashley Whitehead – Downstream Transport of Zebra Mussel (Dreissena Polymorpha) Environmental DNA and Implications for Analysis
• Juan García-Cancel – Invasive Grasses Impact Native Plant Survivorship by Influencing Soil Moisture
• Michael Whitson – Nest Success and Habitat Selection Response of Lesser Prairie-Chicken to Grazing and Prescribed Burning Treatments
• Jacob Harvey – Monitoring of Feral Swine Habitat Use and Potential Contact with Livestock and Wildlife on Rangelands in North Texas
• Mukti Ram Subedi – Do LIDAR Data Offer Practical Significance in LULC Classification Over NAIP Data?

Poster Session II

• Rachael Wiedmeier – Respiratory Microbiomes of Aoudad and Desert Bighorn Sheep in Texas
• Tucker Davidson – Nest-Site Selection and Nest Survival of Avian Communities in Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands Undergoing Thinning Prescriptions
• Catherine Lechnar – Determining Optimal Combinations of Herbicide Application and Prescribed Fire for Biological Invasion Control in Attwater’s Prairie Chicken Habitat
• Brice Martin – Topographic Setting of Sonoran Desert Tortoises in the Border Region
• Danielle Deming – Coyote Population Dynamics and Food Habits in the Mojave Desert Region
• Owen George – Assessing the Top-Down and Bottom-Up Effects of Brown Trout (Salmo Trutta) on the Secondary Production of Sensitive Fish Species
• Charles Hoitt –Seasonal Diet Selection of Female Axis Deer in the Texas Hill Country
• Holly Wilson –Microsite Characteristics Selected by Bats Roosting in Bridges in the Trans-Pecos
• Lainey Sagraves & Ariana Rivera –An Assessment of Fine Scale Microclimate Conditions in Purple Martin Artificial Housing and Its Influence on Nest Survival
• Scott Hill - Effects of Spatial Resolution on Functional Connectivity Mapping in Grasslands of Central Texas
• Lily Evans & Michael Whitson – An Assessment of Prescribed Grazing for Lesser Prairie-Chickens on Beef Herd Health and Productivity

3MT Presentations

• Trey Johnson – Potential Tradeoffs Between Survival and Reproductive Rates of Translocated Northern Bobwhite
• David Creamer – Zebra Mussel Invasion Risk: Modeling the Western Spread of an Aquatic Introduced Species
• Aaron Gray – Effects of a Highly Modified Flow Regime on the Fish Assemblage of A Mid-Sized River
• Garret Langlois – Comparison of Roosting Behavior Between Two Disparate Landscapes by a Neotropical Bat (Artibeus Lituratus) in the Atlantic Forest of Paraguay
• Kristin Kabat – Development of a Species-Specific Environmental DNA Assay to Detect the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard (Sceloporus Arenicolus)
• Raini Bulaclac  – Native Grassland Restoration and Bee Demographics on the Texas Southern and High Plains
• Tucker Davidson – Nest-Site Selection and Nest Survival of Avian Communities in Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands Undergoing Thinning Prescriptions
• Jenna Grimshaw  – Population Structure of the Threatened Myotis Septentrionalis Across the United States

CONTACT: Warren Conway, Chair, Department of Natural Resources Management, Davis College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Texas Tech University at (806) 834-6579 or warren.conway@ttu.edu

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