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The University of Southern Mississippi

Honors Theses

Gulf of Mexico

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Sibship Reconstruction For Inferring The Number Of Breeders Of Gulf Sturgeon In The Apalachicola River, Robbilyn Verges May 2018

Sibship Reconstruction For Inferring The Number Of Breeders Of Gulf Sturgeon In The Apalachicola River, Robbilyn Verges

Honors Theses

The Gulf sturgeon is an anadromous fish that inhabits the Gulf of Mexico and its neighboring river drainages. The species is currently listed as threatened due to habitat alterations and overfishing. In this study, we focused on the Apalachicola River in Florida, which has had several historic spawning locations of the sturgeon blocked by the Jim Woodruff Lock and Dam. Age-1 juvenile sturgeon from the year 2013 (n=31) and 2014 (n=131) were genotyped using fourteen microsatellite loci. Sibship reconstruction and parentage assignment was performed in order to determine the effective number of breeders (Nb) and the total number of spawning …


Arthropod Density In A Fragmented Urban Landscape Along The Northern Coast Of The Gulf Of Mexico, Anna E. Williams May 2013

Arthropod Density In A Fragmented Urban Landscape Along The Northern Coast Of The Gulf Of Mexico, Anna E. Williams

Honors Theses

Ecologists once focused their research on “pristine” habitats that were considered untouched by human activity. As urbanization rapidly increases, the concept of pristine habitats becomes obsolete. Urban habitats must be studied in order to understand the ecology of our increasingly developed society. Rapid urbanization greatly affects coastal habitats. Popular real estate, strip malls, casinos, and resorts all fragment urban landscapes. Much of the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico is a fragmented urban landscape caused by rapid development. That same coastal landscape is ecologically important and includes habitats important to many different organisms, among them intercontinental migratory songbirds that …