Autumn-Lynn Harrison – Uniting across hemispheres to discover unknown migratory pathways of birds: Advancing scientific knowledge and translating to conservation
Dr. Autumn-Lynn Harrison is a research ecologist at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and is the program manager of the Migratory Connectivity Project Join Dr. Autumn-Lynn Harrison, a marine ecologist with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, as she shares results from two hemispheric-scale tracking projects, and how the data have been translated into global policy…
Read MoreDaniel Field – The Dinosaur Resurrection: How the Demise of the Dinosaurs Paved the Way for the Origin of Modern Birds
Daniel Field is a lecturer in the Earth Sciences Department at Cambridge, and the Strickland Curator of Ornithology at the University of Cambridge Museum of Zoology Modern birds are the most diverse group of terrestrial vertebrate animals, comprising nearly 11,000 living species. They inhabit virtually every corner of the modern world, and exhibit a mind-boggling…
Read MoreBarbara Vickery and Scott Weidensaul – Birds of Maine: A Life’s Legacy
Barbara Vickery and Scott Weidensaul co-edited Birds of Maine Written by the late Peter Vickery in cooperation with a distinguished team of co-authors and editors, the recently published Birds of Maine is the first comprehensive overview of Maine’s rich birdlife in 70 years. Peter, elected to NOC in 1984, spent much of his career focusing…
Read MoreJonathan Slaght – Owls of the Eastern Ice: Blakiston’s Fish Owl Conservation in Russia
Jonathan Slaght is the Russia & Northeast Asia Coordinator for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) From 2006-2010, Jonathan Slaght studied Blakiston’s fish owls in Russia for his PhD degree in Wildlife Conservation at the University of Minnesota. These enormous and endangered salmon-eaters live in some of the hardest-to-reach corners of northeast Asia, on…
Read MoreMary Caswell Stoddard – Colorful birds, exquisite eggshells, and other avian adventures
Mary Caswell Stoddard (Cassie) is an associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University Birds evolved about 150 million years ago, and today they are the most diverse and colorful land vertebrates. In my group, we are fascinated by the ecological and evolutionary processes that contribute to avian diversity. In…
Read MoreSarah Knutie – Finch in a pinch: effects of environmental change on endemic birds in the Galapagos Islands
Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Faculty Affiliate University of Connecticut Institute for Systems Geonomics The overarching theme of the Knutie Lab is to understand how birds defend themselves against disease-causing parasites, particularly in response to environmental change. Her talk will take us to the Galapagos Islands, where she uses experimental field studies…
Read MoreGail Patricelli – Robots, Telemetry, and the Sex Lives of Wild Birds using technology to study and protect an enigmatic bird
Professor, Department of Evolution and Ecology University of California, Davis Animals use a dizzying array of sounds, smells, colors, dances, electrical fields and seismic vibrations to convince each other to mate. These elaborate courtship signals were a mystery until Darwin’s time—after proposing his theory of natural selection, Darwin was left with the question of how…
Read MoreJennie Duberstein – Working across borders to conserve birds and habitats in the southwest US and northwest Mexico
Sonoran Joint Venture Coordinator U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service The southwest United States and northwest Mexico is a region of incredible biological diversity, as well as human diversity. Birds and habitats don’t recognize international boundaries, and neither can our efforts to conserve then. Successful conservation requires cross-border collaboration that takes into account not just the…
Read MoreGabrielle Nevitt – Following the scent of avian olfaction
Professor in the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior at UC Davis When John James Audubon proclaimed that birds lacked a sense of smell, the study of avian olfaction was doomed to suffer ridicule by ornithology text books for years to come. In recent years, ornithologists have renewed their interest into the sense of smell…
Read MoreTomas Carlo – Effects of avian frugivory in the structure and resilience of plant communities
Associate Professor of Biology & Ecology at Penn State University and associate researcher in the ecology department at the Museo de Historia Natural of the San Marcos National University in Lima, Peru Migratory bird populations are undergoing rapid changes at present. Shifts in the timing of migration and breeding, and in range and abundance, are…
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