Frances Crews James (born September 29, 1930) is an American ecologist who served as a Professor of Biological Sciences at Florida State University.
James studied geographic variation in the size and shape of birds, leading to transplant experiments with red-winged blackbirds and to tests of the theoretical assumptions underlying selection models.
James, originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was immersed in the stream of biology at an early age being involved in the Academy of Natural Sciences Expeditions for Everyone.
[1] James looked specifically at Bergmann’s rule hypothesizing that temperature may not be the most important factor determining body size patterns across gradients.
[1] In 1996 Frances James and her colleague at the University of Florida, statistician Charles McCulloch published an article titled: New Approaches to Population Trends in Land Birds.