Sam E.I. Jones

Georgia Institute of Technology | GT · School of Biological Sciences

An increasing body of evidence has displayed upslope shifts in the high-diversity avian communities of tropical mountains. Such shifts have largely been attributed to warming climates, although their actual mechanisms remain poorly understood. One likely possibility is that changes in species-specific demographic rates underlie elevational range sh...

Please correct the authorlist (this is the correct list): Jocque Merlijn, Mertens Jan, Jamie Gabriel, Jones Sam, Mbende Menard, Mpongo Iyomi Dieu Merci, Nunes Miguel, Pett Brogan, Hamer Matt, de Haas Marco, Van Roie Martijn van Noppen Michiel

The cover image is based on the Letter AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds by Tobias et al., https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13898. The sword‐billed hummingbird (Ensifera ensifera) is exquisitely adapted to its trophic niche as an aerial pollinator of flowerings plants (angiosperms) in the high Andes. A new global data...

Functional traits offer a rich quantitative framework for developing and testing theories in evolutionary biology, ecology and ecosystem science. However, the potential of functional traits to drive theoretical advances and refine models of global change can only be fully realised when species-level information is complete. Here we present the AVON...

Cloud forests are amongst the most biologically unique, yet threatened, ecosystems in Mesoamerica. We summarize the ecological value and conservation status of a well-studied cloud forest site: Cusuco National Park (CNP), a 23,440 ha protected area in the Merendón mountains, northwest Honduras. We show cnp to have exceptional biodiversity; of 966 t...

Globally, birds have been shown to respond to climate change by shifting their elevational distributions. This phenomenon is especially prevalent in the tropics, where elevational gradients are often hotspots of diversity and endemism. Empirical evidence has suggested that elevational range shifts are far from uniform across species, varying greatl...

The physiology of tropical birds is poorly understood, particularly in how it relates to local climate and changes between seasons. This is particularly true of tropical montane species, which may have sensitive thermal tolerances to local microclimates. We studied metabolic rates (using open flow respirometry), body mass and haemoglobin concentrat...

An organism’s ability to disperse influences many fundamental processes, from speciation and geographical range expansion to community assembly. However, the patterns and underlying drivers of variation in dispersal across species remain unclear, partly because standardised estimates of dispersal ability are rarely available. Here we present a glob...

Northern Mozambique’s ‘sky-island’ mountains have become increasingly recognised for their Afromontane birdlife. Despite growing ornithological coverage, however, several Mozambican mountains remain poorly known. We present results from a three-week survey of three such mountains: the Njesi Plateau, Mount Chitagal and Mount Sanga (collectively term...

Closely related tropical bird species often occupy mutually exclusive elevational ranges, but the mechanisms generating and maintaining this pattern remain poorly understood. One hypothesis is that replacement species are segregated by interference competition (e.g. territorial aggression), but the extent to which competition combines with other ke...

An organism’s ability to disperse influences many fundamental processes in ecology. However, standardised estimates of dispersal ability are rarely available, and thus the patterns and drivers of broad-scale variation in dispersal ability remain unclear. Here we present a global dataset of avian hand-wing index (HWI), an estimate of wingtip pointed...

Summary. Few documented recent records of Richard’s Pipit Anthus richardi exist south of Morocco and its status in north-west and West Africa is poorly known. We document a flock of four Richard’s Pipits observed in Dakhla, Western Sahara, in March 2017 and discuss the species’ status in the region. Records appear clustered during passage periods i...

The mountains of northern Mozambique have remained poorly studied biologically until recent years with surveys covering a variety of taxonomic groups highlighting their biological and conservation value. Even so, the medium and large mammal fauna remains poorly known and to date no systematic mammal surveys have been published from any of Mozambiqu...

'Afromontane' ecosystems in Eastern Africa are biologically highly valuable, but many remain poorly studied. We list dragonfly observations of a Biodiversity Express Survey to the highland areas in northwest Mozambique, exploring for the first time the Njesi Plateau (Serra Jecci/Lichinga plateau), Mt Chitagal and Mt Sanga, north of the provincial c...

Climate may influence the distribution and abundance of a species through a number of demographic and ecological processes, but the proximate drivers of such responses are only recently being identified. The Ethiopian Bush‐crow Zavattariornis stresemanni is a corvid that is restricted to a small region of southern Ethiopia. It is classified as Enda...

This end of season report is submitted as a review of the summer 2016-2017 seasons and the research activities of the Operation Wallacea research teams in Cusuco National Park, Honduras; over the course of the two summers. This report contains a summary of the methodologies and surveys employed, in addition to the data collected during that time, a...

The Ethiopian Bush-crow Zavattariornis stresemanni is an endangered, co-operatively breeding southern Ethiopian endemic with a remarkably restricted range (c. 6 000 km²). The species’ range was recently found to be almost perfectly predicted by an envelope of cooler, drier and more seasonal climate than surrounding areas, but the proximate determin...

The mountains of northern Mozambique - archipelagos of scattered inselbergs topped with evergreen forests - remain poorly known biologically. Their long geological isolation from the east African riſt combined with the conflict-fractured history of Mozambique meant that while they represent an area of clear biological interest they have been subjec...

The age and sex differences in the plumages of Bornean Lophura pheasants are poorly known and limit accurate documentation of the ecology, distribution, phenology and conservation status of these elusive and threatened forest taxa. Remotely triggered camera-traps, however, offer a potentially untapped resource. We studied camera-trap footage (825 s...

Summary. The Ethiopian Bush-crow Zavattariornis stresemanni is a charismatic and Endangered endemic bird of southern Ethiopia, whose general biology remains under-studied. We present field notes and observations from 2008 to 2014, covering many aspects of the species’ behaviour and morphology. Bushcrows breed co-operatively in response to both of t...

We provide documentation of the first observations of interactions with carrion in the Ornate Hawk-Eagle (Spizaetus ornatus), a species formerly assumed only to prey on live food items. During fieldwork in RESEX Médio-Juruá reserve, in Amazonas, Brazil, in June-August 2009, images were captured by remote camera traps of an Ornate Hawk-Eagle interac...