About the Mississippi Unit

The Mississippi Unit was established in 1977 as one of the first "superunits" that combined both fisheries and wildlife research and training capabilities into a single unit supervised by one unit leader. A focus of the Unit at inception was bottomland hardwood ecosystems. These dwindling, incompletely understood, and irreplaceable ecosystems provide essential habitat for fish and wildlife resources and also ecological services that affect quality of life and economic sustainability. Related to the focus on bottomland hardwoods, the Unit has engaged in fish and wildlife conservation and management issues in the lower Mississippi River and other floodplain river ecosystems. Research has diversified to include reservoir fisheries and tropical wildlife ecology. Present research activities are conducted to provide needed information to fish, wildlife, and land and water managers in Mississippi, the southeastern United States, the Caribbean, and South America.