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.

These goblers have these just, you know, conspicuous displays,

behaviorally, also all the feathers, the snoo, the beard, spurs, and all these things.

And, you know, from Rich Buckholz's work, the snood seems to be important, and it may convey

a defense against parasites or the gobblers of the longer snood have fewer parasites and,

you know, make sense that females that mate with those males our hands are going to get

maybe some kind of genetic protection from the whatever diseases are out there so it's one of these

one explanation for how you get these strongly dimorphic, you know, males much bigger, showier than the females.

And the females, you know, they have these other pressures to look conspicuous and hide their nests and evade predators.

But one of the things that, you think about sexual selection,

which is what maybe is driving some of these traits,

you know, what we see now is the,

it's built up over many, many generations of turkeys.

And so you can have traits that maybe in the past were,

they conveyed some benefit.

...