[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 5-Mar-2002
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Elizabeth Tait
taite@publicaffairs.si.edu
20-235-726-27129
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Smithsonian convenes international symposium on migratory bird biology

Hundreds of species of birds travel great distances each year and divide their time between two distinctly different habitats. How have the challenges of moving from temperate to tropical environments influenced the life history, morphology and behavior of migratory birds? What factors drive the evolution of seasonal movements? How did migration systems evolve? What properties differentiate long-distance migrants from resident birds? New methodologies and technological tools have been developed in recent years to answer these and other questions about the basic biology of migratory birds.

The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center of the National Zoological Park and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center are convening more than 150 of the world’s leading experts in the ecology and evolution of migratory birds this week to share their latest theories and findings in a series of presentations, roundtable discussions and poster sessions.

The meeting is the third in a series of ornithological symposia involving the Smithsonian in the last twenty years, and the first to be truly global in scope and participation. It will include presentations on all species of migratory birds and cover a breadth of topics ranging from the fossil history of migration to the importance of endo-parasites in regulating population dynamics and culminate – like each of its predecessors – in an edited volume published by the Smithsonian Institution Press.

Participants include: Robert Ricklefs, University of Missouri; Anders P. Møller, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, France; Russell Greenberg, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center; Theunis Piersma, University of Groningen, The Netherlands; Sievert Rowher, University of Washington; Peter Marra, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center; Mikko Mönkkönen, Oulu Institution, Finland; and, Bridget Stutchbury, York University, Canada.

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

 


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.