David N. M. Mbora

Professor David Mbora is an ecologist, and conservation biologist, interested in understanding how the preeminent threats to biodiversity, habitat loss and fragmentation, affect animals. He investigates questions on the effects of habitat change on population genetics, parasites and diseases, behavioral ecology, and population abundance and distribution. Taken together, the results of his work indicate that some animals are more vulnerable to extinction in fragmented landscapes. Therefore, identifying such vulnerable species, and the characteristics that make them vulnerable, is vital for conservation and promotes ecological and evolutionary theory.

Mbora involves his students in all research activities including fieldwork in Kenya and laboratory analysis in the United States. Students get opportunities to travel to Kenya and learn how to do science and conservation in a developing country. Mbora teaches courses in animal behavior, conservation biology, ecology and evolution, and environmental science.

Publications

• Mbora, D. N. M. and M. A. McPeek, 2010. "Endangered Species in Small Habitat Patches Can Possess High Genetic Diversity: the Case of the Tana River Red Colobus and Mangabey." Conservation Genetics, 11:1725 - 1735.
• Mbora, D. N. M., and M. A. McPeek, 2009. "Host Density and Human Activities Mediate Increased Parasite Prevalence and Richness in Primates Threatened by Habitat Loss and Fragmentation." Journal of Animal Ecology, 78, 210-218.
• Mbora, D. N. M. and E. Munene, 2006. "Gastrointestinal Parasites of Critically Endangered Primates Endemic to Tana River Kenya; the Tana River Red Colobus (Procolobus rufomitratus) and the Crested Mangabey (Cercocebus galeritus)." Journal of Parasitology, 92:928-932.
• Mbora, D. N. M., and D. B. Meikle, 2004. "Forest Fragmentation and the Distribution, Abundance and Conservation of the Tana River Red Colobus (Procolobus rufomitratus)." Biological Conservation, 118:67-77.