Zoology

DEPARTMENT OF

Brooks M. Burr

Professor
Director of Undergraduate Studies in Zoology

Office: 254 Life Science II
Phone: 618-453-4112
email: burr@zoology.siu.edu

Education: B.S., Greenville College; M.S., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Ph.D.,University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Courses taught: Ichthyology, the Diversity of Vertebrates, and Systematic Zoology and Zoogeography

Areas of interest: Ichthyology

My research interests include both ecological and systematic relationships of fishes, with emphasis on North American freshwater fishes and neotropical fishes from the Peruvian Amazon. We now have completed four expeditions to the Iquitos region of Peru and have accumulated approximately 4,000 lots of Amazonian fishes for study, including many new country records and several undescribed species.

Recent work of a more local nature centers around the study of federally endangered species, including the relict darter in western Kentucky and the duskytail darter in eastern Kentucky. These studies have shown the need for extensive field efforts in order to understand habitat requirements, spawning periods, and other factors of relevance in managing endangered species.

I am currently working on the descriptions two new species of Noturus (madtom catfishes) from Tennessee (with J. M. Grady and D. J. Eisenhour), a new shiner (Cyprinidae) from Mexico with R. R. Miller of the University of Michigan, and a new Pterolebias from the Peruvian Amazon with Jim Thomerson. With several colleagues I am preparing species accounts for a new "Fishes of Illinois: a Century of Change." Graduate students are pursuing a variety of studies including reproductive biology and larval life history of spring cavefish, taxonomic status of pimelodid and doradid catfishes, natural history of sculpins in Missouri caves, community ecology of fishes in the Cache River, fishes of a high elevation stream in Panama, larval fish ecology of Pool 25, Mississippi River, and nesting biology of black and yellow bullheads.

For more information on my research program, please see my lab webpage.

Recent Publications

Books:

Burr, Brooks M. and Melvin L. Warren, Jr. 1986. A distributional atlas of Kentucky fishes. Kentucky Nature Preserves Commission Scientific and Technical Series No. 4. i-xvi + 398 pp., color frontispiece, 7 tables, 18 figures, 242 maps.

Page, Lawrence M. and Brooks M. Burr. 1991. A field guide to freshwater fishes, North America north of Mexico. Peterson Field Guide Series, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 432 pp. (790 species accounts), 48 Plates (32 Color, 16 Black & White), 64 figures, 377 maps.

Articles in Professional Journals:

Buitrago-Suarez UA, Burr BM. 2007. Taxonomy of the catfish genus Pseudoplatystoma Bleeker (Siluriformes : Pimelodidae) with recognition of eight species Zootaxa 512: 1-38.

Adams SR, Flinn MB, Burr BM, Whiles MR, Garvey JE. 2006. Ecology of larval blue sucker (Cycleptus elongatus) in the Mississippi River. ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER FISH 15: 291-300.

Roberts ME, Burr BM, Whiles MR, Santucci VJ. 2006. Reproductive ecology and food habits of the blacknose shiner, Notropis heterolepis, in northern Illinois. AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 155: 70-83.

Burr BM, Eisenhour DJ, Grady JM. 2005. Two new species of Noturus (Siluriformes : Ictaluridae) from the Tennessee River drainage: Description, distribution, and conservation status. Copeia 4: 783-802.

Sloss BL, Billington N, Burr BM. 2004. A molecular phylogeny of the Percidae (Teleostei, Perciformes) based on mitochondrial DNA sequence. MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETICS AND EVOLUTION 32: 545-562.

Moyer GR, Burr BM, Krajewski C. 2004. Phylogenetic relationships of thorny catfishes (Siluriformes : Doradidae) inferred from molecular and morphological data. ZOOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY 140: 551-575.

Chick JH, Maher RJ, Burr BM, Thomas MR. 2003. First black carp captured in US. Science 300: 1876-1877.