#BOUasm25 - Keynote abstracts - British Ornithologists' Union

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#BOUasm25 – Keynote abstracts

A day at the museum: collections-based ornithological research in a changing world

18 November 2025
Natural History Museum, London & online & Bluesky

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Keynotes

From specimens to solutions: the evolving role and current challenges of natural history collections

Alex Bond
Natural History Museum, UK

Natural history collections hold extraordinary potential for science. With hundreds of millions of specimens worldwide, including more than 120 million in the United Kingdom, these collections document life on Earth across millennia and ecosystems. They are already helping researchers track biodiversity loss, examine environmental change, and respond to emerging challenges such as invasive species and disease outbreaks. As tools and questions evolve, the scientific value of collections only increases.

Yet many collections remain underused and under-recognised. Shifts in institutional priorities, limited investment in curatorial expertise, and ageing infrastructure pose real challenges to the long-term viability of many collections. However, this is not a story of decline—it is one of opportunity. Across the globe, innovative research is showing what is possible when collections are supported, accessible, and actively used.

I will share examples of how collections-based research is advancing science in ways that would be impossible without these specimens. I will also offer practical ways researchers, institutions, and collaborators can contribute to strengthening and sustaining collections. There is enormous potential waiting to be unlocked, and by working together with curators and collections professionals, we can ensure these vital resources continue to inform and inspire for generations to come.

Alex (he/him) is the Principal Curator and Curator in Charge of Birds at the Natural History Museum in Tring, UK, home to 1 million ornithological specimens spanning nearly 300 years. His research focuses on conservation, particularly marine debris, invasive species, and extinction modelling, as well as taxonomy and the history of ornithology. He has been awarded the 2020 Royal Society Athena Prize and the 2022 Marsh Award for Ornithology.

Ducking & diving: the role of adaptation in waterfowl macroevolution

JC Buckner
University of Texas at Arlington, USA

In evolutionary theory, there are two major mechanisms of diversification: 1) differential adaptation, and 2) random genetic drift. These mechanisms are not mutually exclusive and teasing apart their respective contributions to lineage diversification presents a challenge. However, when independent lineages are subject to the same selection pressures, they may converge on similar adaptative phenotypes. Lineages displaying these convergent phenotypes provide natural replicates for testing the action of (a)biotic selective drivers in shaping adaptation, and in turn diversification. Thus, our lab leverages convergent lineages to advance insights into major evolutionary questions related to adaptive diversification at macroevolutionary scales: (1) How does natural selection shape patterns of speciation and extinction? (2) How do organismal traits change, and co-vary, in response to selection? (3) What is the genetic architecture underpinning adaptive phenotypes? (4) What environmental and ecological factors drive adaptation? The interaction between environment, ecology, and selection drives adaptive diversification, so study systems must be well-characterized in their biogeography, ecology, and functional traits to address these questions. The order Anseriformes (waterfowl – ducks, geese, swans, and screamers) is one such well-characterized group displaying convergent morphological adaptations apparently related to diet. Therefore, to better understand the processes driving diversification — especially adaptation — exploratory and hypothesis-driven research in the IDER lab integrates molecular systematics, comparative genomics, geometric morphometrics, phylogenetic comparative methods, and niche modelling to investigate the (paleo)ecology and evolution of waterfowl as our main model system.

JC is an evolutionary zoologist and assistant professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Texas at Arlington and a research associate in the Division of Birds at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. She serves as the principal investigator of the IDER lab focused on vertebrate macroevolution, biodiversity dynamics, adaptive genetics, and trait evolution. She is also VP of Communications for the Black in Natural History Museums non-profit.

Using habitat occupancy modelling and genomics to understand a century of change to the birds of Mexico

John McCormack
Occidental College, USA

Understanding how species respond to the Anthropocene requires tools that assess changes in distribution, abundance, and DNA across time. Leveraging analytical tools for assessing distributional change and historical population genomics, the Mexican Bird Resurvey Project re-examined country-wide patterns of avian change over the past century by integrating historical museum records, modern resurveys, community-science observations, and genomic data. We fit occupancy models for all resident Mexican bird species while controlling for detection, environmental covariates, and sampling effort. Declines are heterogeneous in space and among species, with the steepest losses concentrated in the biodiverse southern tropical forests, and among taxa that rely on undisturbed forests, especially insectivores. Many species also show upslope movements, with declines in the lowlands and steady or increasing occupancy in higher elevations. We also sequenced populations of five highland bird species resampled from historical and contemporary localities. Despite significant shifts in allele frequencies consistent with drift, effective connectivity among populations and genome-wide diversity remain similar through time, suggesting limited erosion of genetic variation to date. Together, these results reveal that Anthropocene impacts in Mexico have not been uniform: specific habitats and species bear a disproportionate burden, while many species and communities exhibit marked resilience. The coexistence of decline and persistence implies that persistence is plausible if we protect habitat, maintain landscape connectivity, and mitigate climate and land-use pressures via targeted policy.

John is Director and Curator of the Moore Laboratory of Zoology at Occidental College, home to the world’s largest collection of Mexican bird specimens. He got his undergraduate degree from University of Arizona and his PhD from UCLA. His research focuses on bird species responses to historical landscape changes and other human influences with the Mexican Bird Resurvey Project and the Free-flying Los Angeles Parrot Project. He is a recently inaugurated fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Using natural history collections to build community

Sushma Reddy
University of Minnesota, USA

Natural history collections are key global resources holding the primary records of species information across time and space. Currently there is a resurgence of biodiversity studies utilizing collections along with innovative tools to conduct analyses of macroevolutionary patterns, ecological changes, and anthropogenic impacts. Nevertheless, these institutions have been under scrutiny for their colonial legacies and problematic practices of resource sharing. Additionally, museums are often faced with limited funding to support their collections. Using examples, I highlight the critical need for museums to promote inclusion and expand awareness by broadening the community of users and contributors. Fostering international collaborations is key to expanding access and inclusion. Most biodiversity knowledge of the Global South is held in northern museums and access to specimens is often limited. Being open to new collaborations that may result in novel research directions can serve to expand capacity and support scholars from regions with few museums. Additionally, creating public programs to build awareness of the value of specimens is key to expanding interest in museum collections. Since most research collections are outside of public view, many visitors are unaware of how and why specimens are used. One example for building awareness is to solicit the public to aid in collecting specimens such as salvaged, freshly dead animals. Empowering citizen scientists serves the dual purpose of expanding collections while also generating community-driven ways to engage the public with science. With intentional efforts, museums can secure their future value to society and drive multidisciplinary connections.

Sushma is the Breckenridge Chair of Ornithology at the Bell Museum of Natural History and Associate Professor in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology at the University of Minnesota. Her research investigates biological diversity by using genetic, phenotypic, and geographic data to study the evolutionary history of birds.

A Zambian ornithological collection as a window into brood parasite-host coevolution

Claire Spottiswoode
University of Cape Town, South Africa

Brood-parasitic birds are renowned for their beautiful adaptations for trickery and exploitation, arising from coevolution with the hosts that raise their young. Museums can give us a unique window into this process, since rapid coevolution between hosts and parasites can be reflected in long-term collections. For four decades from the late 1960s, Major John Colebrook-Robjent, a farmer and oologist, together with field assistants – particularly Lazaro Hamusikili – documented breeding birds and collected their eggs in southern Zambia’s Choma region. This meticulously recorded collection now resides in the Livingstone Museum, Zambia, under the curatorship of Maggie Mwale (also speaking at the conference). My colleagues and I have spent the past two decades studying this collection and, inspired by it, carrying out fieldwork on breeding birds in Choma. In this talk, I will share some of our findings on host-parasite coevolution that the collection has enabled, involving Cuckoo Finches, Greater Honeyguides, African and Diederik Cuckoos, and their hosts. I will focus especially on how selection on egg mimicry drives coevolutionary arms races between hosts evolving new egg signatures and parasites new egg forgeries; and how, in turn, coevolution has shaped ancient genetic specialisation in parasites, to maintain host-specific mimicry that foils host defences.

Claire is a South African evolutionary ecologist working on birds in Africa. She has been hooked on natural history since childhood, and is especially fascinated by species interactions. Her two main areas of research are coevolution between brood-parasitic birds and their hosts, and mutualism between honeyguides and the human honey-hunters with whom they cooperate to access to bees’ nests. Both projects involve close cooperation with communities in Zambia and Mozambique respectively.

Feathers and eggs: leveraging ornithological collections to explore the evolution of colour, pattern and structure in the avian world

Mary Caswell Stoddard (Cassie)
Princeton University, USA

Ornithological collections offer biologists an especially compelling route to studying the diverse phenotypes of birds. My group’s research on the evolution of plumage and eggs has taken us to more than ten natural history museums in the United States and United Kingdom. By integrating state-of-the-art imaging and computational tools with analyses of museum specimens, we aim to understand the evolutionary and mechanistic processes that contribute to avian diversity. Recently, we developed a pipeline for capturing and analysing hyperspectral images of museum specimens, a technique that combines the high spectral resolution of spectrophotometry with the high spatial resolution of photography. Using an ultraviolet-sensitive hyperspectral camera, we uncovered new details about the plumage colours of a rare hybrid Bird-of-Paradise. In a separate study, we applied new tools for quantifying complex patterns — like spots, stripes, and bars — to the study of plumage evolution in Melanerpes woodpeckers. Our research on eggs has also made ample use of ornithological collections, beginning with work on egg mimicry by the Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) and extending to projects on the evolution of egg shape across 1400 species and the diversification of egg colour, shape and surface texture in Paleognaths — the most ancient lineage of modern birds. Using these examples as case studies, I will highlight the great potential of ornithological collections — catalysed by new technology for quantifying the phenotype — to yield novel insights into avian evolution and behaviour.

Cassie is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. Stoddard received her undergraduate degree from Yale University. On a Marshall Scholarship, she completed her Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge before joining the Harvard Society of Fellows as a Junior Fellow. At Princeton, she curates the Princeton Bird Collection and runs the Princeton Better for Birds Project. She is a 2023 Schmidt Sciences Polymath Fellow.

Scientific Programme Committee