Transcript ESRM 456

ESRM 456
Biology and Conservation
of Birds
John Marzluff
123E Anderson
206 616 6883
[email protected]
Course Web Page
• Web site
– http://courses.washington.edu/vseminar
• Follow links to ornithology (field and lecture)
• Class email list
– Important to monitor your u. account for
announcements related to class notes, etc.
• [email protected]
Assignments and Grading
• CRITICAL THOUGHT EXERCISES (100 Points). Throughout the
quarter I will provide materials for you to evaluate (e.g., conservation
plans, scientific papers, etc) and discuss. Each student will turn in a
1 page summary of their review and discussion. There will be 5
assignments worth 20 points each.
• MIDTERM EXAM (100 Points). My exams include long essay and
discussion problems. The midterm will include all material covered
up to that point and will be a take-home exam.
• FINAL EXAM (DEC 12, 830am, Wink 201; 200 Points). The final
exam will be comprehensive.
• RESEARCH PAPER (due December 2; 100 Points). You can
choose the topic of your choice that involves bird biology or
conservation and write a research paper that reviews and
synthesizes the relevant scientific literature. Pose questions for
future study. No more than 5 pages in length (double spaced), not
including references or tables/figures.
Why Birds?
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Taste great
Look nice
Culturally important
Useful in sport and
work
• Interesting and
everywhere
• Need active
conservation
Birds are Tasty
Subsistence Among Native
Peoples
Harvest of arctic birds: early 20th century
Egging
Starting in the 1840s…
“Doc Robinson came west to start a
theatre company but soon discovered
more money was to be made by stealing.
He plundered eggs from the common
murres nesting at the Farallons and sold
them for $1.75 a dozen. The Farallon Egg
Company was soon formed and every May
through July ten to fifteen men gathered,
packaged, shipped and sold the eggs.
During the early days 600,000 eggs were
taken per year; an estimated 14 million
eggs were removed in a 40-year period.
The original murre population of a half
million was reduced to several thousand by
the turn of the century.”
From, M. Ellis. History of the Farallon
Islands: an essay
Egging on SE Farallon Island,
California
Egging
Laysan & Black-footed
Albatross eggs being harvested
on Midway Island. Early
20th century.
Feathers are Pretty and Useful
Check out Thor Hanson’s 2011 book “Feathers”
Birds are Good Hunters
They are Reliable
Raven saving Elijah
Swiss Army with carrier pigeons
Early 19th century
pigeon
• They are diverse and everywhere
– 9700 species in world
– 650 in US and Canada
Hawaiian Drepanids--Splendid
Isolation
• Adaptive Radiation
– Single ancestor,
radiation in bill shape
to exploit variety of
resources
• Convergent Evolution
– Bill shape converges
with mainland species
utilizing similar
resources
(hummingbirds,
grossbeaks)
Hawaiian Drepanids--Deadly
Isolation
• Extinction and
Endangerment due to
lack of resistance to
exotics
– humans, mosquitoes,
rodents
• Trophic Cascade
Effects
– loss of pollinators
leads to plant
endangerment
Important Early Players
John J. Audubon
(1785-1851)
Alexander Wilson
(1766-1813)
John Townsend
John Burroughs, John Muir, Teddy
Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell
Was a naturalist
with Custer, worked with
TR to start Audubon
Set conservation policy
and reserved important
lands, especially in the
west
Heightened awareness of
Eastern and Western nature
Ornithological Societies of North
America
A.O.U.
W.O.S.
C.O.S.
A.F.O.
Typical avian features
1. feathers
2. unique skull
single occipital condyle
cranial kinesis
bills without teeth (in modern birds)
gizzard (grinding or storage-crop)
3. hollow bones, many fusions
4. eggs
5. chambered heart
6. homeothermic, rapid BMR
7. lungs and air sacs
8. highly developed brain and nervous system
Unique Skeleton
4-chambered heart
• Homethermic,rapid
BMR
• Lungs and air sacs
• Highly developed brain and nervous system
Early Evolution and Radiation of Birds
• Mesozoic era—age of reptiles
• Birds evolved from reptiles
– Archaeopteryx 150 my in Jurasic
Birds Diverged from Reptiles
after Mammals
From Tony Angell
But From Which Reptiles?
• All agree birds came from Archosaurs
(Archosauria is a crown group, consisting of birds,
crocodiles, and all descendants of their most
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recent common ancestor), but
Crocodylia (crocs and gators)
Saurischia (reptile hip dinos)
Ornithischia (bird hip dinos)
Pterosauria (flying reptiles)
Thecodontia (ancestral group)
which group?
Hypotheses abound as to whether birds evolved from basal thecodonts,
saurischians (the most common view), or crocodylia
The Prevalent View
• Dinosaurs are icons of prehistory, and
remain an important part of
• the modern world in the form of some
10,000 living species of birds. Feathers, eggs,
and parental care are
known among the
dinosaurs
Dinosaurs are icons of prehistory, and remain an important part of
the modern world in the form of some 10,000 living species of birds.
(Brusatte et al. 2010. Earth-Science Reviews 101:68-100)
Recent Evaluation of Alternative
Hypotheses (James and Pourtless (2009,
Ornithological Monographs No. 66)
Closest Relatives of
Archaeopteryx and other birds
are are maniraptoran,
theropod dinosaurs (idea known
as BMT hypothesis)
Archaeopteryx as Oldest Bird
(Chiappe and Dyke 2002)
Archaeopteryx v. Velocoraptor
Greg Erickson, Florida State University
(Chiappe and Dyke 2002)
A New Fossil
Godefroit et al. 2013
Small Feathered
Dinosaur, Basal
Bird, The Avialae
Clade
A New Phylogeny
A New Phylogeny
Hypotheses Are Still Being Tested
Greg Erickson, Florida State University
So, What is a Bird?
• The Class Aves is “a node-based clade
that includes Archaeopteryx, modern birds,
their most recent common ancestor, and
all its descendents” (James and Pourtless 2009)
• Birds—as so defined--share only 3 derived
morphological attributes (Chiappe 2002)
– Caudal margin of the external naris nearly reaches or overlaps the
rostral border of the antorbital cavity
– A prominent acromion in the scapula
– A pointy and shallow postacetabular wing of the ilium that has less that
50% the dorsovetral depth of the preacetabular wing at the acetabulum
• The Clade Avialae, which is a sister group of Dromaeosaurids
• If it has a flight wing and avian feathers it’s a bird (Feduccia
2013)
Our Insights are Products of the
Analysis
• THE list of shared, derived characteristics held by all and only
birds are questioned by some and reflect the author’s scoring
schemes and pool of animals that are compared. Other analyses by
other people provide some differences. As more fossils are
discovered, scored, and analyzed the features of birds and the
search for their closest relatives will become clearer.
Birding would have been
dangerous