The Biodiversity of Birds

09/22/20 • 23 min

2 Listeners

Episode: 3
Summary
Birds are an incredibly successful and diverse group of animals.

In this episode, you’ll get an overview of the origin of avian species diversity and its present-day distribution across the planet.

I offer some definitions of ‘biodiversity’ with respect to birds. We’ll discuss why this diversity is important.

Links to Some Things Mentioned in this Episode

Clements Checklist of the Birds of the World

Research Citations‍

Genetic research leading to the species split between the Winter Wren and Pacific Wren (Toews and Irwin. 2008. Molecular Ecology)

Errors and Clarifications
Clarification - 07:25 - I say that the Clements Checklist has 10,721 bird species. This is true. However, this number includes about 160 extinct species. So this means there are 10,561 extant (i.e. living, non-extinct) bird species on the planet today.

Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website

Support the show

Episode: 3
Summary
Birds are an incredibly successful and diverse group of animals.

In this episode, you’ll get an overview of the origin of avian species diversity and its present-day distribution across the planet.

I offer some definitions of ‘biodiversity’ with respect to birds. We’ll discuss why this diversity is important.

Links to Some Things Mentioned in this Episode

Clements Checklist of the Birds of the World

Research Citations‍

Genetic research leading to the species split between the Winter Wren and Pacific Wren (Toews and Irwin. 2008. Molecular Ecology)

Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website

Support the show

Previous Episode

Competition Between Bird Species

Episode: 2
Summary

Learn about the ways that different bird species compete with each other over food and other resources.

I first talk about the concept of the ecological niche, since this is so important to this episode's topic.

Then, I get into the different forms of competition between bird species and present the possible outcomes of that competition.

Lastly, I briefly touch on the general approaches that scientists take in studying interspecies competition in birds.

Links to Some Things Mentioned in this Episode

Research Citations

Competition among scavenging birds in Peru (Wallace and Temple. 1987. The Auk)
Red-winged Blackbirds vs. Yellow-headed Blackbirds (Weller and Spatcher. 1965. Special Report)
Birdfeeder dominance hierarchy among 136 bird species in North America (Miller et al. 2017. Behavioral Ecology)
Competition among tits in Swedish Winter (Alatalo et al. 1987. Ecology)

Errors and Clarifications

Error - 23:04 min: I say that the second type of competition between species is "exploitation interference". I meant to say exploitation competition. I make this error repeatedly in this section. My apologies!

Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website

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Next Episode

Migration in Birds

Episode: 4
Summary

The annual long-distance movements of birds are amazing feats of endurance and navigation.

Learn about the various forms of migration and other annual movements in birds. We’ll cover many concepts related to migration, including timing and orientation, staging areas, and flyways.

Research Citations