RESEARCH

“So, they have faculty … and grad students come around to either provide comments on their project feedback, give helpful feedback or judge them for certain special area competition,” Elder said.

Mikayla Herndon and Addison All are both seniors majoring in psychology. The pair presented a poster on grit, a concept in academic workplaces which measures success and ability to persevere.

“We did the research together, and then basically came up with two ideas and each pursued one," All said. "Mine was to see whether it is a better predictor of outcomes for suicide and personality."

Herndon’s side of the

“There is no regular infusion of freshwater into the salty water of the Mississippi Sound estuary to keep the water just a little salty. Estuaries have brackish water that is just a little bit salty,” Melby said.

Parker Lowery, a Gulf Coast local who has researched robotic oyster harvesting, said there are three main threats to the Mississippi Sound’s ecology: impaired waterways, pollution and habitat fragmentation.

According to Lowery, Mississippi’s coastal habitats have been fragmented by misplaced infrastructure. Concrete, rock bulkheads and seawalls have been laid to reduce coastal erosion, but they have had an adverse impact on wildlife.

“These structures

Josie Nasekos, an intern of the MSU Office of Sustainability, said that Earth Week is a great opportunity for the Starkville community to celebrate our planet.

“Earth Week is a really great opportunity for students to get involved in sustainable student groups and kind of learn more, while having fun in the process. Earth Week is all about celebrating the earth that we've been given and the beauty of nature. So, throughout the whole week, we'll be sharing information on how you can be involved to continue to be sustainable, even when the week is over,” Nasekos said.

helping someone else.”

Carla Huston, an MSU professor who serves as the Veterinary Disaster Response Coordinator for the College of Veterinary Medicine, spoke about the role MSU plays in disaster relief.

“Under the state emergency response plan, Mississippi State acts as a supporting entity in several different areas of the response plan. The MSU Extension Service and the MSU College of Veterinary Medicine work closely with Mississippi’s Board of Animal Health under what’s called ‘Support Function 11,’ that deals with animals and agriculture,” Huston said. Huston said the

MSU Extension Service was instrumental in providing an assessment of the agricultural and livestock damage done in Amory. The College of Veterinary Medicine provided support for large and small animals upon request. “We received a request from the county to help support the companion animal care and triage from the ASPCA and Amory Humane Society. We helped coordinate some activities with the local veterinarians over the phone and provided onsite support for the Humane Society,” Huston said.

Huston stated that the care of affected animals, whether it be pets or livestock, is a between that model and those outcomes, and then we ended up adding grit to it,” Herndon said. significant form of disaster relief.

Herndon and All agreed they decided to enter the symposium because they wanted to work on a project together.

“We get involved in disaster response because of the impact we can have on communities. Animals are attached to people and families, they’re a part of people’s lives," Huston said. "Providing care for these animals is important because some of these people have lost their homes, and being able to help take care of their pets means they have one less thing to worry about.” project focused on the potential importance of grit as a predictor.

Those interested in donating or volunteering can contact the United Way of Northeast Mississippi at unitedwaynems.org or call 662-841-9133.

“So, we took outcomes like depression, anxiety and stress, and we looked at the fivefactor model, which is like the general personality model, and we saw the associative strength eliminate important wildlife habitats, decrease water quality and lead to a reduction in fish and wildlife diversity,” Lowery said. Lowery said that the pollution of local waterways is negatively impacting the economy and ecology of the Gulf Coast. Leaking septic tanks, excess pesticides and fertilizers and miscellaneous trash has led to habitat loss for many species.

“Continued loss of freshwater and estuarine wetlands also reduces the ability of these natural habitats to provide water quality benefits,” Lowery said.

“Impaired coastal waterways harm commercial seafood harvests, beach-related tourism, recreational fishing and fish and wildlife populations.”

“Yeah, I think it's like really just trying to use whatever opportunities that we can get, and it's like having the data just makes it so much easier. If like you're involved in labs like that, where you can have the data available to you, it's just like, you might as well do the project,” Herndon said.

In the future, Elder said she hoped the event would continue to be integrated further across campus.

According to Lowery, there is much economic incentive to protect Gulf Coast wildlife. More than 120,000 recreational anglers went fishing along Mississippi’s coast in 2011, supporting 5,200 jobs and generating nearly $70 million in tax revenues, equating to about $94 million today.

“There needs to be a proactive program to promote land development that accounts for storm risks, water quality protection and the conservation of native wildlife and their habitats,” Lowery said.

In the case of the Gulf Coast’s wild oysters, their population has been decimated by the instability in the Mississippi Sound.

According to the Nature Conservancy, the population of native oysters has declined an estimated 50% to 85% from historic levels. The decline now seems to be accelerating, and oyster harvests are being further curtailed across the region. Roughly 13 years ago, Mississippi was harvesting about 500,000 sacks of oysters annually, but recent harvests have been closer to 10,000 sacks.

“If you were ever like ‘I want to know a little bit about what's going on in science kinds of things’, there's 110 projects that are represent undergraduates working on projects that are mentored by faculty,” Elder said. For more information on the research symposium, visit urcd.msstate.edu.

Wes Neal, a professor in the MSU Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, said it is especially important to support ideal water conditions for wildlife. If water conditions become inhospitable for marine species, their populations are likely to decline.

“Organisms are experts in their environments, but when a fish is trapped in a stream, they can’t just move to the next stream over – the fish is isolated in one area and when conditions change –they’re stuck there,” Neal said.

During his time at MSU, Melby worked to mitigate these damaging effects on Gulf Coast wildlife. In the 1980s, his team worked on beach restoration plans, including some on Biloxi Beach. MSU landscape architecture and biological engineering students worked with Melby to maintain the health of coastal ecosystems for decades.

“Our last phase of beach management was to establish salt marshes along the beachfront which collected sand and made the beaches wider naturally. The salt marshes were also habitat for marine life,”

Melby said.

Melby said that there is little push to stabilize water conditions in the Mississippi Sound, and new conservation methods need to be developed to preserve ecosystems on the Gulf Coast.

“The restoration of the coast and country is an ongoing saga,” Melby said.