William F. Morris

Professor of Biology

Office:

104 Bio Sci Bldg, Durham, NC 27708

Campus Box:

Duke Box 90325, Durham, NC 27708-0325

Phone:

(919) 684-5257

Email:

wfmorris@duke.edu

Bill Morris studies the population ecology of plants and insects (both herbivores and pollinators). Current projects include: the population dynamic consequences of constitutive and inducible resistance in plants, the maintenance of mutualistic interactions between flowering plants and nectar-robbing pollinators, the use of population-level attributes to detect biotic responses to ongoing environmental changes, and the use of mathematical models to assess viability of threatened and endangered populations. The common thread uniting these projects is that they combine field experiments and mathematical models to study population dynamics in natural and managed systems.

Education

Ph.D., University of Washington 1990
B.S., Cornell University 1983

Morris, W. F., and P. M. Kareiva. “How insect herbivores find suitable host plants: The interplay between random and nonrandom movement.” In Insect-Plant Interactions, 3:175–208, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780203711699. Full Text

Morris, William F., Johan Ehrlén, Johan P. Dahlgren, Alexander K. Loomis, and Allison M. Louthan. “Biotic and anthropogenic forces rival climatic/abiotic factors in determining global plant population growth and fitness..” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, December 30, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1918363117. Full Text

Peterson, M. L., W. Morris, C. Linares, and D. Doak. “Improving structured population models with more realistic representations of non-normal growth.” Methods in Ecology and Evolution 10, no. 9 (September 1, 2019): 1431–44. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13240. Full Text

Waddle, Ellen, Lucas R. Piedrahita, Elijah S. Hall, Grace Kendziorski, William F. Morris, Megan L. Peterson, and Daniel F. Doak. “Asynchrony in individual and subpopulation fecundity stabilizes reproductive output of an alpine plant population..” Ecology 100, no. 4 (April 2019). https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2639. Full Text

Peterson, Megan L., Daniel F. Doak, and William F. Morris. “Incorporating local adaptation into forecasts of species' distribution and abundance under climate change..” Global Change Biology 25, no. 3 (March 2019): 775–93. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14562. Full Text

Villellas, Jesús, María B. García, and William F. Morris. “Geographic location, local environment, and individual size mediate the effects of climate warming and neighbors on a benefactor plant..” Oecologia 189, no. 1 (January 2019): 243–53. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-018-4304-2. Full Text

Peterson, Megan L., Daniel F. Doak, and William F. Morris. “Both life-history plasticity and local adaptation will shape range-wide responses to climate warming in the tundra plant Silene acaulis..” Global Change Biology 24, no. 4 (April 2018): 1614–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13990. Full Text

Himes Boor, Gina K., Cheryl B. Schultz, Elizabeth E. Crone, and William F. Morris. “Mechanism matters: the cause of fluctuations in boom-bust populations governs optimal habitat restoration strategy..” Ecological Applications : A Publication of the Ecological Society of America 28, no. 2 (March 2018): 356–72. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1652. Full Text

Canelles, Q., S. Saura-Mas, L. Brotons, M. B. García, F. Lloret, J. Villellas, and W. F. Morris. “Environmental stress effects on reproduction and sexual dimorphism in the gynodioecious species Silene acaulis.” Environmental and Experimental Botany 146 (February 1, 2018): 27–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envexpbot.2017.06.010. Full Text

Louthan, Allison M., Robert M. Pringle, Jacob R. Goheen, Todd M. Palmer, William F. Morris, and Daniel F. Doak. “Aridity weakens population-level effects of multiple species interactions on Hibiscus meyeri..” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115, no. 3 (January 2018): 543–48. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708436115. Full Text

Campos, Fernando A., William F. Morris, Susan C. Alberts, Jeanne Altmann, Diane K. Brockman, Marina Cords, Anne Pusey, Tara S. Stoinski, Karen B. Strier, and Linda M. Fedigan. “Does climate variability influence the demography of wild primates? Evidence from long-term life-history data in seven species..” Global Change Biology 23, no. 11 (November 2017): 4907–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13754. Full Text