Meet the Fisheries and Wildlife Faculty

Dana Morris, Ph.D.

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Fisheries and Wildlife

Avian ecology, avian stress physiology, behavior, conservation, community-based conservation.

Morris's primary interests are those of land use changes and their proximate and ultimate affects on breeding birds. Much research has shown that forest fragmentation lowers reproductive success of breeding birds through edge effects that attract nest predators. However, little is known about how fragmentation affects nesting females, their offspring or their seasonal productivity.
Measuring physical condition, stress hormones and brood sex ratios, she has demonstrated that forest fragmentation in Missouri poses physiological costs to breeding birds with potential for long-term consequences to populations.
Ultimately, conservation depends on researchers, resource managers, policy makers, partnerships and informed citizens. Through collaboration in community-based conservation with the African Conservation Centre in Kenya and through coursework, Morris investigates how conservation is accomplished at local, national and global scales.

Morris, D. L., D. Western, and D. Maitumo. In Press.
Pastoralist's livestock and settlements influence game bird diversity and abundance in a savannah ecosystem in southern Kenya. African Journal of Ecology.
Washburn, B. E., J. J. Millspaugh, D. L. Morris, J. Faaborg, and J. H. Schultz. 2007.
Using a commercially available enzyme immunoassay to quantify testosterone in avian plasma. The Condor 109:181-186.
Washburn, B. E., D. L. Morris, J. J. Millspaugh, J. Faaborg, and J. H. Schultz. 2002.
Using a commercially available radioimmunoassay to quantify corticosterone in avian plasma. The Condor. 104:558-563.
Morris, D. L. and F. R. Thompson III. 1998.
Effects of habitat, sex, and invertebrate density on abundance and foraging behavior of the Brown-headed Cowbird. The Auk. 115:376-385.
Cawthorn, J. M., D. Morris, E. Ketterson, and V. Nolan. 1998.
Influence of experimentally elevated testosterone on nest defence in Dark-eyed Juncos. Animal Behaviour. 56:617-621.