Welcome to Wild Turkey Science, a podcast made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow.

I'm Dr. Marcus Lashley, Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Florida.

And I'm Dr. Will Gulsby, Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management at Auburn University.

We're both lifelong hunters and devoted scientists who are passionate about hunting, managing, and researching wild turkeys.

In this podcast, we'll explore turkey research, speak to the experts in the field, and address the difficult questions related to wild turkey ecology and management.

Our goal is to serve as your connection to wild turkey science.

All right.

So today we have Dr. Mark McConnell here, who's a professor working on Upland Gamebirds

at Mississippi State University and one of the researchers leading some of the ongoing

turkey work that you've already heard about and also have worked quite a bit with several species of

galiforms. I guess you've probably done more work on quail than any other species as far as I remember,

Mark, but I know you've been leading some research on turkeys, and you've also talked and studied quite a bit about density dependence.

And that's really what we wanted to talk to today.

So we really appreciate you coming on the show to talk about that.

No, happy to do it.

Yeah, the galliforms are generally a, the chicken- like birds are great species to study the topic of density dependence.

And there's just a ton of literature around the world on them because of their kind of unique life history.

So they're a great critter to talk about this topic with.

Yeah. Well, I know that we've kind of mentioned to you why, how we got here to this topic.

And, you know, we've had quite a few people on here to talk about different aspects of turkey biology and management efforts.

And a lot of those things, especially when you're looking at restocking efforts

and looking at the progressions of turkey populations that really made Will.

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