Oscar Laverde

• PhD
• Pontifical Xavierian University

Research on avian bioacoustics in the Neotropics has surged over the last several decades due to increased interest in the large diversity of vocal behaviors and vocalization and the broader accessibility of recording equipment and software. Here, we present a synthesis of the current and past knowledge of Neotropical bird bioacoustics. This synthe...

Los patrones de actividad vocal diaria son clave para conocer las dinámicas comportamentales de las especies. Si bien las vocalizaciones ocurren a lo largo del día, muchas especies de aves tienden a concentrar la mayor cantidad de vocalizaciones en dos momentos específicos: el coro del amanecer y del atardecer, periodos diarios de gran actividad vo...

La bioacústica, o el estudio de los sonidos que producen los animales, es una herramienta que ha sido ampliamente usada en el estudio de las aves, con un incremento en el número de estudios que la aplican en las últimas décadas por su carácter poco invasivo y de relativo bajo costo. Aquí presentamos una revisión sistemática de las investigaciones s...

We evaluated habitat preference of the White-backed Barbet Capito hypoleucus using population density as an indicator. We followed a hierarchical method based on different spatial scales of response, using data obtained in the Serranía de las Quinchas, a small range of mountains in the Magdalena Valley of Colombia, and comple- mented with records o...

Las señales acústicas son una de las formas de comunicación más importante en la fauna, incluso en la ubicación espacial de los individuos y sus presas. El estudio de las señales acústicas fortalece los campos de investigación en ecología, comportamiento, identificación taxonómica, uso de hábitat e incluso el efecto de las actividades humanas sobre...

Describimos la composición de especies de aves del Parque Nacional Natural (PNN) Chingaza y su zona de amortiguación, a partir de la revisión de 10 estudios ornitológicos, trabajo de campo entre 2008–2017 y la expedición Colombia Bio en 2018. Reportarmos para el PNN Chingaza y su zona de amortiguación un total de 531 especies, agrupadas en 339 géne...

Migratory animals move up to thousands of kilometers every year [1]. Losses of migration (i.e., migratory drop-offs) occur when individuals of a migratory species stop migrating and establish founder sedentary populations, a phenomenon documented in birds [2, 3, 4, 5] and butterflies [6]. In theory, losses—and also gains—of migration might promote...

The keystone roles of mega‐fauna in many terrestrial ecosystems have been lost to defaunation. Large predators and herbivores often play keystone roles in their native ranges, and some have established invasive populations in new biogeographic regions. However, few empirical examples are available to guide expectations about how mega‐fauna affect e...

El estudio de paisajes sonoros es una oportunidad costo efectiva de investigar los procesos que afectan la diversidad biológica de un ecosistema, ofreciendo nuevas herramientas para el manejo del territorio y abriendo perspectivas para atraer otro tipo de público interesado en la conservación.

Avian inventories of the poorly known tropical dry forest in the Cúcuta Valley, north-east Colombia, yielded new distributional data for 15 bird species including several range extensions along the east slope of the East Andes, or filled distributional gaps between the Serranía de Perijá and Mérida Andes of Venezuela, and between the Maracaibo basi...

Birds inhabit a variety of habitats and they communicate using primarily visual and acoustic signals; two central hypotheses have been postulated to study the evolution of such a signals. The sensory drive hypothesis posits that variation in the physical properties of habitats leads to variation in natural selection pressures by affecting the ease...

Cotingas are considered essentially frugivorous, but a few records suggest they might include small vertebrates in their diet, mainly during the breeding season. In March 2015, we recorded a young male of an Andean Cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola peruvianus) chasing and eating an adult Canada Warbler (Cardellina canadensis) in Santa Maria, Boyacá (Colom...

Seasonally dry tropical forest is the least known and most threatened ecosystem in the Neotropics. In December 2009, we surveyed 3 tropical dry forest remnants in the arid Cúcuta valley, northeast Colombia. We recorded 140 of the 171 maximum species expected for the study area. Another 20 species were observed outside the inventory, totaling 160 sp...

Understanding the frequency with which animals sing is of critical importance to address a variety of research questions in behavioral ecology and sexual selection. However, information on vocal output, a central component of the investment in signaling, is lacking for most species. We asked whether the number of recordings of avian vocalizations i...

Animals communicate using signals perceived via multiple sensory modalities but usually invest more heavily in one of type of signal. This pattern, observed by Darwin ¹ and many researchers since, led to development of the transfer hypothesis (see also transferal effect ² and tradeoff hypothesis 3,4 ), which predicts a negative relationship between...

We describe Scytalopus alvarezlopezi from the Western Andes of Colombia. The new species forms part of a distinctive clade of Scytalopus tapaculos (Rhinocryptidae) that also includes S. robbinsi from Ecuador and S. stilesi and S. rodriguezi, which occur on the Central and Eastern Andes of Colombia. S. alvarezlopezi is easily diagnosable from its ne...

Studies focused on soundscape are important on biological conservation, because natural sounds are permanent and with dynamic properties, they have been linked to the welfare of the environment and the structure of the landscape. These studies usually analyze the sound in time and frequency domains, with computationally heavy and centralized algori...

The Black Tinamou (Tinamus osgoodi) is a rare and endangered bird with two geographically disjunct subspecies. Very little pertinent information exists due to its secretive habits and cryptic coloration. Observations from a one-year study at Alto Fragua Indi Wasi National Park in southern Colombia have provided new ecological information for T. o....

We provide the first detailed descriptions of the nest cavity and eggs of the White-tailed Quetzal (Pharomachrus fulgidus) from the montane forest of the SW slope of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, northern Colombia. We found two active cavities (both .2.5 m high) in isolated tree snags of non-native Mexican weeping pine (Pinus patula). One cavit...

The Black Tinamou (Tinamus osgoodi) is a rare species with 2 recognized subspecies distributed locally. This is one of the most poorly known tinamous; few sound recordings exist, and few behavioral or sighting records are found in the literature or in ornithological databases. We compiled all the information on its geographic distribution and clima...

Ficha en línea Literatura citada De las especies nombradas en la última década para Co-lombia, 20 han sido elevadas de subespecie a especie. Uno de estos casos es del barranquero (Momotus momo-ta), que mediante el estudio de sus cantos y morfología, fue dividido en cinco especies 6 . Otro ejemplo es el del tilu-chí colilargo (Drymophila caudata), c...

Species delimitation has important consequences for the management of endangered species. Species-level taxonomy in the genus Crypturellus (Tinamidae) has been based largely on plumage characters and species limits in several groups have been difficult to establish. Because some of the forms of uncertain taxonomic status are currently threatened wi...

It is generally understood that the Anodorhynchus genus of macaws does not spread north of the Amazon River. However, recent published information suggests that the endangered Hyacinth Macaw Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus may occur in the region of the Papurí River, lower Vaupés, in Amazonian Colombia. This information is hypothetical, based on old rep...

Fallen branches, logs, and exposed roots (fallen branches hereafter) commonly form part of the trunk trail system of leaf-cutting ants that inhabit the tropical rain forest. We studied the role of fallen branches on resource discovering and on leaf transport rates in Atta cephalotes. Fallen branches were common components of the A. cephalotes trail...

During a brief survey in the highlands of Serranía de las Quinchas on January 2006, we found six bird species new to the Serranía: Anurolimnas viridis, Malacoptila mystacalis, Sclerurus mexicanus, Cyphorhinus phaeocephalus, Coryphospingus pileatus and Cacicus cela. In addition, we reported four species in the highlands that were only known from the...

We present and evaluate 60 new bird records from the Serrania de las Quinchas, Boyacá, Colombia, including 14 range extensions and local extensions for 20 species, including four extensions of the known altitudinal range, with comments on the most important of these. With the updated inventory, we evaluate the avian community of these mountains, co...

We present and evaluate 60 new bird records from the Serrania de las Quinchas, Boyacá, Colombia, including 14 range extensions and local extensions for 20 species, including four extensions of the known altitudinal range, with comments on the most important of these. With the updated inventory, we evaluate the avian community of these mountains, co...

After going unrecorded for 60 years, a population of the Recurve-billed Bushbird (Clytoctantes alixii) was recently discovered at an elevation of 1650 m in Agua de la Virgen, Ocaña municipality, Norte de Santander, Colombia. Our observations suggest that at this site, this antbird used for its foraging the bamboo Rhipidocladum racemiorum. The bamb...