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.
