Pamela C. Rasmussen’s research while affiliated with Cornell Lab of Ornithology and other places

... The New World jays (Passeriformes: Corvidae; hereafter NWJ) are a monophyletic group whose geographical origin has been traced to the eastern Palearctic with a subsequent radiation in Mesoamerica and later throughout the entire American continent (Fernando et al. 2017). Several NWJ clades, including the one grouping the formerly recognized genera Psilorhinus and Calocitta, recently included within the speciose genus Cyanocorax (Chesser et al. 2024), have evolved in lowland forests (Bonaccorso et al. 2010). These taxa are characterized by clear patterns of geographical variation in morphology and coloration (Dos Anjos 2009, 2020. ...

Reference:

Ecological niche conservatism and diversification in a clade of New World jays from the tropical lowland forests of Mesoamerica

... Using the posterior distributions of these demographic parameters we calculated four derived quantities before generating point estimates of these quantities for each population of each species: Note: Species codes are the 4-letter alpha codes from the Institute for Bird Population (IBP) in accordance with the 64th supplement from the American Ornithological Society (Chesser et al., 2023). N.P is number of presences in SDMs and the two area under the curve (AUC pa ) columns indicate the AUC pa values of the generalized linear model (GLM) and boosted regression tree (BRT) species distribution models when distinguishing between presences and pseudoabsences. ...

Reference:

The potential for species distribution models to distinguish source populations from sinks

... Intergradation between brunneicollis and T. musculus in an area of close approach in north-central Oaxaca has not been definitively established (Monroe 1968, Binford 1989. Formerly included extralimital species T. cobbi Chubb, 1909 [Cobb's Wren], which was separated (Chesser et al. 2013) on the basis of morphological, ecological, genetic, and vocal differences (Woods 1993, Campagna et al. 2012 Notes.-Formerly considered conspecific with T. aedon, but separated based on deep genomic divergence (Klicka et al. 2023) and corresponding differences in vocalizations and morphology (Oberholser 1904, Sosa-López and Mennill 2014, Sosa-López et al. 2016 Notes.-Formerly ...

Reference:

Sixty-fifth Supplement to the American Ornithological Society’s Check-list of North American Birds

... A total of 210 sites were ultimately selected for surveying to overlap with long-term vegetation monitoring plots undertaken by CM (see below). For each detected species, we assigned a migratory status using Cornell Lab's Birds of the World (https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/ home) and previously published classifications (Regos et al., 2018; Appendix S1) and used international bird code abbreviations following the American Ornithological Society's North American bird checklists (Chesser et al., 2022). For the purposes of this study, we only used breeding bird data collected between 2017 and 2021 for model development (but see spatial prediction, below, for details on model validation efforts). ...

Reference:

Breeding bird sensitivity to urban habitat quality is multi‐scale and strongly dependent on migratory behavior

... Vocalization is a bioacoustic trait that is important in reproductive and territorial activities [73,74]. In avian SCZs, vocal differentiation may result from natural selection or drift, and contributes to the formation of reproductive isolation [75,76]. Natural selection may reduce the fitness of hybrid individuals, and vocalization may cause further differentiation through the reinforcement of prezygotic reproductive isolation [77,78]. ...

Reference:

Trait Variation and Spatiotemporal Dynamics across Avian Secondary Contact Zones

... This filtering method reduced the number of rare/uncommon species, which tended to be recorded more frequently in CBC data, while preserving the number of species that only occur in one season or another. Lastly, current taxonomic nomenclature (English common names and genus species names) were cross-referenced against the most current American Ornithological Society (AOS) checklist of north and middle American birds (Chesser et al. 2021). Our final species pool consisted of 238 species (File S1). ...

Reference:

The Erosion of Seasonality in Avian Communities

... Traditionally, taxonomy has been based on morphological criteria, as these were the only criteria that could be studied on museum specimens. However, avian species delimitation is now typically based on a body of evidence integrating morphological, acoustic, genetic and other data (e.g., Alström et al. 2007Alström et al. , 2008Alström et al. , 2015aAlström et al. , 2016Alström et al. , 2021avan Els & Norambuena 2018;Sangster 2022). Vocalizations are especially important in avian systematics as they can reflect species divergence and differentiation (Alström & Ranft 2003) but also directly contribute to reproductive barriers (Price 2008), although differences in vocalizations are not systematically linked to evolutionary divergences (Potvin et al. 2013). ...

Reference:

Molecular and acoustic evidence support the species status of Anthus rubescens rubescens and Anthus [rubescens] japonicus (Passeriformes: Motacillidae)

... The work of Tobias, et al. [31] was rated positively by many authors in the past [76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83]. Hurrell [84] described the Tobias method as follows: "The Tobias method is a fast, reliable points-based system that assesses differing characteristics of an animal. ...

Reference:

Sushkin’s Bean Goose Anser neglectus has Not Been a Phenotype or a Color Variation of the Western Taiga Bean Goose Anser fabalis fabalis and Probably Obtains a Full Species Status, Following the ‘Tobias Criteria’

... Another aspect of the issue that appeared in the Washington Post comments was an openness to change some eponyms when the person commemorated is deemed today to be especially egregious even by the standards of that era. This is already being done in some cases (e.g., Driver & Bond 2021;Chesser et al. 2021). This view was also represented among comments on Guedes et al. (2023), although changes of this sort to scientific names are at present not possible, except for zoological names under extreme restrictions (see Anonymous 1999, Article 79). ...

Reference:

The inordinate unpopularity of changing all eponymous bird and other organismal names

... The Mexican duck was considered as a species in the 1957 American Ornithologists Union Check-list (5th Edition) until it was removed and included as a subspecies of the mallard (Anas plathyrhynchos), being identified with the scientific name Anas plathyrhynchos diazi in 1983 (American Ornithologists Union Check-list, 6th Edition). This process led to a controversy regarding the taxonomy of the species until 2020, when the American Ornithologists Society (AOS) finally defined it as Anas diazi species [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Due to its occurrence in small populations and the destruction of its habitat, the Mexican duck was protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act as an endangered species in 1967, from which it was later removed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in 1978 as a result of its classification as a subspecies of the mallard. ...

Reference:

Characteristics of the Habitat and Population Densities of the Mexican Duck (Anas Diazi) in the Plateau of Zacatecas, Mexico