The Naturalist

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — University Professor Douglas James has received the W. Frank Blair Eminent Naturalist Award from the Southwestern Association of Naturalists for his lifetime commitment to the study and conservation of birds.

James, who has taught at the University of Arkansas since 1953, is the author of 100 or more articles published in ecological and ornithological research journals and he his the co-author of The Birds of Arkansas, published by the University of Arkansas Press. The focus of his research has included ecology, ornithology and vertebrate ecology, with studies in recent years of the comparative ecology of bird populations in Africa, Asia and North and Central America, endangered species and their habitats, bird and bat migration, and the prevalence of West Nile virus in bird populations in Arkansas. During the course of his career he has been awarded three Fulbright Scholarships to teach and do research in Ghana, Nepal and Belize and was granted a Visiting Scholar Fellowship to the University of Cambridge.

“Over the last 50 years, no one has contributed more to the study of birds in Arkansas than Douglas James,” said Kimberly Smith, professor and chair of the department of biological sciences in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. “This includes the distribution of species, habitat analyses where he pioneered the field of statistical avian ecology, and research of endangered species such as the red-cockaded woodpecker.

“The consummate naturalist, Doug can identify most of the birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and plants of northwestern Arkansas on sight,” Smith said.

During his career, James has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, among others. He has mentored 45 master’s degree students and more than 20 doctoral students, and is currently conducting research with four doctoral and three master’s degree students.

The Southwestern Association of Naturalists was founded to promote the field study of living and fossil plants and mammals in the southwestern United States, Mexico and Central America. The Blair award was established in 1986 to recognize excellence in a lifetime of commitment to outstanding study or conservation of the flora or fauna of the southwestern United States, Mexico and Central America.

The award has personal meaning to James because he and Frank Blair were close friends until Blair’s death in 1984.