Dr. Smith: I'd like to welcome everyone who's online and ready to ask me some questions. I'm really interested in hearing what the students' focus is and what their wetlands concerns are, how they work, and how we can protect them.

Dr. Smith: Yes. We're actually part of the Texas A & M University system, but our building houses 17 different agency offices that include both federal agencies - such as the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service - and also the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas General Land Office. Each of those agencies are required to help protect wetlands in the state of Texas, and we have graduate students that work as interns in their programs.

Dr. Smith: That's a difficult one. I enjoy both fresh water wetlands and also wetlands that fringe the bay margins. Primarily I like to go out in these wetlands in a kayak, where I enjoy photography and fly-fishing.

Dr. Smith: We start out with the people that would like for us to work with them, whether they be agency or landowner, and we ask them what their goals of management and conservation are. Then we do field surveys that give us elevation profiles, vegetation communities, and also where we can then analyze how the wetland works. In addition, we would sample for organisms that live in the soil or the fish that are in the water, or birds that utilize the wetlands for feeding or resting.

Dr. Smith: I think the most important issue we face right now is increasing public awareness of the importance of our coastal habitats. So education is a key issue, and as we have more people move to the coast there are more pressures on developing in these coastal habitats. In relation to that, we also have increasing pressures on surface fresh water. And we need to guide our management to ensure that the people have adequate water, as well as the wildlife.

Dr. Smith: Since we do surveys that go from individual organisms and populations to the landscape level, where we're looking at different habitat types, it is sometimes difficult to find all the data that you need to do an analysis. Also, we need more than one type of scientist in doing the analysis, so we often have geologists and hydrologists and plant biologists and zoologists assisting in collecting the necessary data. Then, to incorporate the landscape, we use geographic information systems (GIS). So, quite a bit of data must be compiled at different scales.

Dr. Smith: It's interesting that most of the scientists that I work with here in the Texas Coastal Bend are women. Most of us went to graduate school together, but I don't really think of us as women scientists, so I don't think there are advantages or disadvantages at being a female scientist. Instead, I see that we all, both the men and women scientists, have a common goal to help conserve the environment.

Dr. Smith: We're finishing up a project where we are assessing a wetland that has been cut off from the bay by a highway. The agencies have asked us to recommend how to restore the water flow to this wetland, so we're looking at our water level data and comparing that to the bay title gauges to determine the size of the culvert necessary to restore the wetland.

Dr. Smith: Overall, I would say that it is a serious concern. But we have to evaluate each drainage system using good scientific data. We also have to look at where the pollution is coming from and how we can reduce that pollution.

Dr. Smith: We are lessening the water supplies through the construction of reservoirs and diverting water for agriculture. This has an effect on the bay waters by increasing salinities. Since most organisms have a tolerance for certain salinities, increasing the salinity level may place additional stress on the animal, and thus reduces populations.

Dr. Smith: Actually, my favorite websites are several different travel websites where I can go in and find specials so I can travel to different places. I travel 7-8 times a year across the country, so I look for specials that allow me to stay over a couple days and hike in different areas and kayak in different wetlands. We also have several links to other wetland sites on our Center for Coastal Studies website, http://www.sci.tamucc.edu/ccs/whoweare.htm

Dr. Smith: I think the most important activity that we can engage in is conserving water, whether that's from reducing the amount of water we use in our home and yard, and also in matching the plants that we have in our landscapes to the amount of water available, so drought-tolerant plants are a plus. Also, we have several programs where students can monitor the health of wetlands, such as our Adopt-a-Wetland Program, where students go out and collect data and assist in the monitoring, as well as participate in outreach activities.

Dr. Smith: Wetlands have several functions. I would say that the most well-known function is that it creates habitat for juvenile fish and shrimp, but wetlands also can be used as bio-filters that assist in cleaning the water and improving water quality. The quality of the water entering the wetland should be high quality to reduce the stress on the wetland and its animals.

Dr. Smith: Probably the biggest impact on sea turtles would be litter and debris because the turtles can ingest or swallow plastics and it often kills them.

Dr. Smith: We have several activities that students can get involved in, such as cleaning trash up along the beach and bay shore lines. That will assist in improving the health of the wetland as well as how it looks. Also, we get involved in restoration projects where we go out and we plant vegetation in wetlands.

Dr. Smith: Most of my research is conducted along the Texas coast. However, we do conduct research in Mexico, both south of here and in the Yucatan Peninsula. In that area, we study mangroves and coral reefs.

Dr. Smith: A good website that has a lot of links is http://www.glo.state.tx.us/wetnet/. Another good one is http://tpwd.state.tx.us. These are good resource links for all the different habitat types in Texas and also conservation programs that we can become involved in.

Dr. Smith: I'm not sure about spreading of diseases, but global warming is of interest to coastal systems because of its effect on sea levels and most wetlands are located at the edge of upland shorelines. If a sea level rise occurs and the upland area is developed, then the wetland is not able to maintain its position in the landscape.

Dr. Smith: I've always wanted to work outdoors and I enjoy continuing to learn. I also wanted to choose a profession where I would make a difference in helping in conservation. My professional interests are quite broad, so I have taken several different types of classes, from geology to plants, animals, computer science, and statistics classes so I would be able to have the expertise to assess habitats in their landscape.

Dr. Smith: When we assess a wetland we develop what we call a water budget where we look at inputs of the water from rainfall, surface water flows, and ground water flows, and then we look at the outputs from evaporation, surface water outflows, and ground water outflows. Since a wetland does periodically go dry, it is dependent on the inputs and outputs of these flows, but when we alter those flows, we alter the way the wetland works. So when we look for that perfect balance, we understand that it is dynamic, but it is in a state of equilibrium in natural conditions.

Dr. Smith: We expect that more fish and shrimp, as well as organisms that live in the soil, will enter the wetland and that will positively affect the animals that feed on these organisms. So we expect to see higher biodiversity and productivity, and we are primarily going to be watching the documenting the bird usage of the wetland to determine if our assumptions are correct.

Dr. Smith: We should really get to know the politicians that are running for office and understand their positions on wetland preservation, and we should actively participate in letting them know our concerns through writing letters to them and to back them when they support a bill that will help preserve wetlands. And we can do this even if we're not of voting age! So, the best advice is to be well-informed of the current issues.

Dr. Smith: We have an undergraduate program here at A & M Corpus Christi that is a biology program, and you take a suite of courses that includes everything from looking at genetics to studying plants and animals, and several different ecology courses. Usually, when a student completes that Bachelor's Degree, a certain part of the sciences is of particular interest to them, and then they can pursue a Master's Degree focusing on that particular scientific discipline. All of those disciplines are very important in understanding conservation.

Dr. Smith: We do support our graduate research with grants and we have seen cycles of sometimes more money being available and sometimes less. We currently are going through a little bit of a lower funding cycle, but we believe we'll be able to continue to do research and that there are plenty of opportunities out there to get funding.

Dr. Smith: Yes. We work with several of the universities in the state of Tamaulipas in developing research programs to study the Laguna Madre. We are also working to develop some partnerships with the universities in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Dr. Smith: Yes, we study these wetland types, both on the Barrier Island and also on the mainland. They are of particular interest to me because of their use by migratory birds. Most of these wetlands are very small and so they are not protected under law. We are working to increase public awareness about their importance and working with developers to keep these wetlands in their development plans and to build around them.

Dr. Smith: Most of the wildlife that we survey are from bird counts. We are interested in what they're feeding on, so most of the fish and shrimp that we sample are the ones that we also eat, so most of the time we're looking at white and brown shrimp and at juvenile spotted trout and red fish. Most of the effort to keep these populations healthy makes us concentrate on these particular species.

Dr. Smith: Yes. They are most sensitive to change because of their permeable skin structure, so they are sensitive to pollutants and contaminants. We do survey them in fresh water wetlands. However, they are difficult to capture and to estimate their population abundance, so they are used primarily in laboratories to assess the contaminant levels that are detrimental to their population abundance or levels.

Dr. Smith: Yes. I believe that we have some good laws in effect to protect wetlands. I think we should make sure that we don't lose these regulations. The agency biologists that I work with are very committed to protecting our natural resources. We just need to make sure that our policy makers continue to be concerned about the environment and protecting it.

Dr. Smith: We're having good luck with getting people actually out into the wetlands. We take them out on kayaks or we get them involved in restoration Projects, giving them hands-on experience of how the wetlands work and how important they are. We believe that this approach increases the public awareness of wetlands. Also, we like to take people out to take photographs of plants and animals in wetlands, and that usually increases their curiosity about the wetlands and how they work.

Dr. Smith: Yes. We work with both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges, the state parks and wildlife management areas, as well as the preserves that are owned by the Nature Conservancy of Texas. We assist them in doing baseline surveys that help them develop management and conservation plans.

Dr. Smith: When I started working at the watershed level, I added a geographic information systems student to my wetland team. Students develop data base layers on the computer that delineate watersheds and identify land use and land cover information that is useful to assessing the watershed health. So, it becomes more of a computer assessment, but our role is to go out and 'ground truth' those databases in the field, so there's a combination of both computer and field assessment.

Dr. Smith: I think every time we have the floods, we're reminded of how much land can flood and where we need to not build or develop. We often have aerial surveys - taking photographs from a plane - after floods so we can identify these flood-prone areas, and the floods themselves actually bring in nutrients and sediments into the wetland habitat that is part of the natural cycle.

Dr. Smith: Yes, we work with the Mustang Island State Park, as well as the Padre Island National Seashore. Two of my favorite places out on Mustang Island are Shamrock Island Nature Preserve and Francine Cohn Nature Preserve, owned by the Nature Conservancy. We have active research in all of these areas.

Dr. Smith: I'm actually planning on teaching my wetland ecology class in the spring, and I am trying to combine both lectures with field work in many of these places that I love to work in. I am planning an extended overnight field trip so that they are able to work out in the wetlands for several days. So, that's my main focus right now. It's exciting to be able to teach and learn with the students.

Dr. Smith: I'm working towards conducting more research in Mexico, so I am learning Spanish. Also, I am interested in understanding the importance of plants in native cultures, so I'm reading more about that. And we just completed a book on the Laguna Madre of Texas and Mexico that will be out in January. We're looking forward to hearing comments about that book. I'm looking for opportunities to work with school-age kids in environmental conservation camps in the summer. Those are my next goals.

Dr. Smith: We went over to the Czech Republic to present a paper at a scientific meeting, but we also met scientists from all over the world and looked at wetlands in the Czech Republic, Austria, and southern Germany. We were able to interact with these other scientists and learn new approaches, as well as make contacts for future research.

Dr. Smith: We are very interested in the relationship between the endangered whooping cranes that winter here on the Texas coast and the population levels of blue crabs (which are their primary food), so several groups are looking into potential reasons why the blue crab population is declining and how that is affecting the whooping crane population. We are also interested in the declining populations of the southern flounder. We are not sure why that is occurring. We are looking at different parameters, such as how water quality affects these organisms, pollution, and over-fishing so that we can implement some measures to increase their population level.

Dr. Smith: I've really enjoyed all the different questions. I hope that each of you will consider becoming a scientist, whether it's working in wetlands or other habitats. I would really like to emphasize on how each one of us can make a difference on conserving our biodiversity and that you will actively participate in conservation and restoration programs wherever you live.