Loading
|
Loading
|
Biologist
Professor James Ryan is a biologist who has spent significant time conducting field research. He focuses on mammalian biodiversity and conservation of African small mammals.
In the past, Professor Ryan spent three summers surveying Madagascar’s rainforests as part of a select scientific team. He studied vampire bats in Trinidad, concentrating on the bat’s flight muscles, as well as the natural history of pygmy shrews and the effects of free radicals on cultured nerve cells. In 1997, Ryan took part in an international survey of Ghana’s coastal forests in conjunction with the nation’s Wildlife Department and the University of Ghana. The survey catalogued the area’s plants and animals and set up a program to monitor their welfare. In 2001, with funding from the National Geographic Society, Professor Ryan studied the hero shrew, a rare mammal that lives in Uganda. Ryan currently is studying the evolution and function of the visual system in bats.
Professor Ryan is co-author on a college textbook on mammals published by Thomson Learning and is currently writing a field guide to Adirondack wildlife.
Recent publications include:
D.K. Attuquayefio, C.J. Raxworthy, and J.M. Ryan. 2005. Preliminary biodiversity assessment (Herpetofauna and mammals) of a coastal wetland in the Volta Region, Ghana. Ghana Journal of Science. 45:19-26.
Freeman, S. 2004. Biological Sciences. 2nd edition, Pearson, Prentice Hall, Saddle River, N.J. (contributing editor for six physiology chapters).
Ryan, J., Kerlan, J., Jordan, B., Lloyd, E., Lynch, A., and A. Shritz. 2004. Exploring muscle function through histochemistry. In, Sivlerthorn, Johnson, and Mills, Laboratory Manual for Physiology, Benjamin Cummings, N.Y.
Kerlan, J., Ryan, J., and M. Meagher. 2004. Blood lactic and avid levels after maximal exercise. In, Sivlerthorn, Johnson, and Mills, Laboratory Manual for Physiology, Benjamin Cummings, N.Y.
Ryan, J. M. (2003) Nesomys, Red Forest Rat. “In Goodman and Benstead (eds.) The Natural History of Madagascar,” Chicago University Press).
Mitchell, K. and Ryan, J. M. (in press) Game theory models of animal behavior. Journal of Undergraduate Mathematics and its Applications.
Ryan, J. M. (editor) (2000) Biodiversity and Ecology of Coastal Wetlands in Ghana. Biodiversity and Conservation, Special Issue, 9(4):445-560.
Ryan, J. M. and Y. Ntiamoa-Baidu. (2000) Biodiversity and ecology of coastal wetlands in Ghana. Biodiversity and Conservation, 9:445-446.
Gordon, C., Ntiamoa-Baidu, Y., and J. M. Ryan. (2000) The Muni-Pomadze Ramsar site. Biodiversity and Conservation, 9:447-464.
J. M. Ryan and D. Attuquayefio. (2000) Mammal fauna of the Muni-Pomadze Ramsar site, Ghana. Biodiversity and Conservation, 9:541-560.
Vaughan, T.A., J. M. Ryan, and N. J. Czaplewski. 1999. Mammalogy, 4th edition, Saunders College Publishers, Philadelphia. Pp.
Hermanson, J.W., Ryan, J. M., Cobb, M.A., Bentley, J., and W.A. Schutt. 1998. Histochemical and electrophoretic analysis of the primary flight muscle of several phylostomid bats. Can. J. Zool., 76:1983-1992.
Publications:
Author of:
Comparative Myology and Phylogenetic Systematatics of the Heteromyidae (Mammalia, Rodentia)
University of Michigan/Museum of Zoology, 1989
Co-author of:
Mammalogy
Harcourt/Saunders Press, 1999
Interview opportunities and additional background information may be requested through the Office of Communications, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York. Phone: (315) 781-3540. After business hours, Communications staff members are accessible through contact information on their answering machine at that number.
James M. Ryan, professor of biology and environmental studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges since 1987, holds a Ph. D in zoology from The University of Massachusetts, a master's degree in biological sciences from The University of Michigan and a bachelor's degree in zoology from The State University of New York at Oswego. He is the recipient of the Hobart and William Smith Colleges Faculty Prize for Scholarship in 1997.
He is a member of several scientific organizations including: Species Survival Commission Insectivore Specialist Group of IUCN - The World Conservation Union, the North American Benthological Society, American Society of Mammalogists, American Institute of Biological Sciences, Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society (past president of Geneva chapter) and Council on Undergraduate Research.
Ryan is the co-author of a college textbook on mammalian biology, "Mammalogy" (Saunders College Publishing, 1999), and is currently working on the fifth edition of that book. He has authored a new field guide to wildlife of the Adirondacks, due to be released by the University Press of New England early in 2009. Additionally, he published two papers with colleagues in Ghana, West Africa in 2007. He also recently collaborated with John Halfman, professor of geolimnology and hydrogeochemistry, to complete a project on water quality of Owasco Lake.