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UT Tyler Biology Professor Continues to Help Threatened Species

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March 31, 2015

Media Contact:  Hannah Buchanan
Editor/Writer–Strategic Communications & Media Relations
Marketing and Communications
The University of Texas at Tyler
903.539.7196 (cell)

March 31, 2015

Dr. Neil Ford has been awarded a research grant from the Texas Department of Transportation to help protect and relocate threatened freshwater mussels in the state, Dr. Michael Odell, vice president for research and technology transfer, announced.

Ford is a UT Tyler professor of biology, and he has served the university since 1979. His research expertise is in life-history evolution.

With this two-year, nearly $20,000 award, Ford and collaborators from Texas A&M Agrilife Research and Texas State University will produce a manual for mussel surveys and relocation to aid TxDOT.

“When road and bridge construction in Texas is proposed, environmental studies must be conducted, and protected organisms must be relocated,” Ford said. “Mussels have recently received some protection as several are now listed as threatened. This research project is to evaluate what methods have been used in other states and to develop methods for mitigation by TxDOT. With the funds, UT Tyler will able to help develop guidelines for conducting mussel surveys and relocations in Texas.”

UT Tyler graduate-level students also will provide assistance, he added.

For more information, contact Ford, 903.566.7249 or nford@uttyler.edu.

Ford has examined the life history and behavior of freshwater mussels along with their respective habitats since the 1990s. His research efforts have brought externally funded grants totaling more than $500,000, with extensive collaborations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Among other honors, he earned the Mary John and Ralph Spence Distinguished Professorship from 2000 to 2003, and he also received the 2003 UT Tyler President’s Scholarly Achievement Award and was named a Texas Academy of Science elected fellow. In June 2013, Ford received the UT Tyler College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Professor Award.

He holds a master of science in zoology from the University of Oklahoma and a Ph.D. in zoology from Miami University in Ohio.

One of the 15 campuses of the UT System, UT Tyler features excellence in teaching, research, artistic performance and community service. More than 80 undergraduate and graduate degrees are available at UT Tyler, which has an enrollment of more than 8,000 high-ability students. UT Tyler offers courses at its campuses in Tyler, Longview and Palestine as well as a location in Houston.