International Ornithological Congress Research Articles

British Ornithologists Union: Janet Kear Union Medal

British Ornithologists Union: Janet Kear Union Medal

Sperm structure of the cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis).

It remains a major concern that sperm structure has continued to be poorly investigated and reported in avian species. To our knowledge, sperm structure in the order Pelecaniforme has not been reported. Although McFarlane (1963; Proceedings of the XIII International Ornithological Congress; Ithaca, NY; American Ornithologists' Union) reported the study of spermatozoa in two genera and two species of the family Ardeidae, he did not provide an account, or the names of the species examined. The present report on the sperm structure of the cattle egret, Bubulcus ibis, is, thus, the first in the order Pelecaniformes (this bird has been placed variably under the order Ciconiiformes, or the order Pelecaniformes). Five sexually mature and reproductively active male cattle egrets were obtained from the wild, humanely euthanized, the reproductive organs dissected out, and tissues from the ducti deferentia were prepared for transmission electron microscopy. The sperm structure of this bird is generally similar to that described for most non-passerine birds. However, the acrosome is a short, conical or bullet-shaped, blunt-ending organelle that lacks a perforatorium. The base of the acrosome is flat and makes contact with the nucleus along, a correspondingly flat plane. The nucleus, thus, ends anteriorly in a flat plane devoid of a concavity or a rostrum, and an endonuclear canal. The acrosomal and nuclear features of this bird are, therefore, main deviations from the situation in the non-passerine clade of birds.

Mark Mansel Rehfisch (11 October 1960 – 8 October 2019)

Mark Mansel Rehfisch (11 October 1960 – 8 October 2019)

Current progress in the development of taxonomic and anatomical ontologies within the scope of BIOfid

The Specialized Information Service Biodiversity Research (BIOfid; http://biofid.de/) has recently been launched to mobilize valuable biodiversity data hidden in German print sources of the past 250 years. The partners involved in this project started digitisation of the literature corpus envisaged for the pilot stage and provided novel applications for natural language processing and visualization. In order to foster development of new text mining tools, the Senckenberg Biodiversity Informatics team focuses on the design of ontologies for taxa and their anatomy. We present our progress for the taxa prioritized by the target group for the pilot stage, i.e. for vascular plants, moths and butterflies, as well as birds. With regard to our text corpus a key aspect of our taxonomic ontologies is the inclusion of German vernacular names. For this purpose we assembled a taxonomy ontology for vascular plants by synchronizing taxon lists from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) with K.P. Buttler’s Florenliste von Deutschland (http://www.kp-buttler.de/florenliste/). Hierarchical classification of the taxonomic names and class relationships focus on rank and status (validity vs. synonymy). All classes are additionally annotated with details on scientific name, taxonomic authorship, and source. Taxonomic names for birds are mainly compiled from ITIS and the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) World Bird List, for moths and butterflies mainly from GBIF, both lists being classified and annotated accordingly. We intend to cross-link our taxonomy ontologies with the Environment Ontology (ENVO) and anatomy ontologies such as the Flora Phenotype Ontology (FLOPO). For moths and butterflies we started to design the Lepidoptera Anatomy Ontology (LepAO) on the basis of the already available Hymenoptera Anatomy Ontology (HAO). LepAO is planned to be interoperable with other ontologies in the framework of the OBO foundry. A main modification of HAO is the inclusion of German anatomical terms from published glossaries that we add as scientific and vernacular synonyms to make use of already available identifiers (URIs) for corresponding English terms. International collaboration with the founders of HAO and teams focusing on other insect orders such as beetles (ColAO) aims at development of a unified Insect Anatomy Ontology. With a restriction on terms applicable on all insects the unified Insect Anatomy Ontology is intended to establish a basis for accelerating the design of more specific anatomy ontologies for any particular insect order. The advancement of such ontologies aligns with current needs to make knowledge accumulated in descriptive studies on the systematics of organisms accessible to other domains. In the context of BIOfid our ontologies provide exemplars on how semantic queries of yet untapped data relevant for biodiversity studies can be achieved for literature in non-English languages. Furthermore, BIOfid will serve as an open access platform for professional international journals facilitating non-commercial publishing of biodiversity and biodiversity-related data.

The British List: A Checklist of Birds of Britain (9th edition)

The British List: A Checklist of Birds of Britain (9th edition)

Editorial for the proceedings of the 26th international ornithological congress

It is our great pleasure to present the Proceedings of the 26th International Ornithological Congress (IOC), which was held at Rikkyo University in Tokyo from 18 to 24 August 2014. The International Ornithological Congress has a strong tradition of bringing together the latest and best research on birds, with a mixture of review papers presenting an overview of their fields, and topical contributions on recent findings. The 26th IOC has continued this tradition and provided not only a highly enjoyable but also a scientifically rewarding environment, where researchers have been able to meet, share ideas and insights, and strengthen collaborations in the global science that ornithology has always been. It was the second ever IOC to be held in Asia, the 2002 Beijing conference being the first. The Congress had over one thousand attendants with 907 presentations (including 518 posters), as well as 15 round table meetings and several working group meetings. These Proceedings are published online as a supplement to the Journal of Ornithology. They include papers by plenary speakers and invited keynote presentations in the Symposia. These papers span all of the fields in which ornithological research is conducted and give a representative view of the current state of ornithology. We would like to sincerely thank the contributions of all authors and reviewers, and the support from the editorial staff at Springer.

Invasive species and Pacific island bird conservation: a selective review of recent research featuring case studies of Swinhoe’s storm petrel and the Okinawa and Guam rail

Nowhere are the negative impacts of invasive species, such as ecosystem modification, predation, parasitism, and disease, more apparent than in the Pacific islands, where human contact triggered a massive avian extinction event that is still ongoing. Island bird species are inherently vulnerable to extinction due to their small, isolated populations and lack of evolved defenses against many predators. To prevent further extinctions, effective bird conservation strategies must be implemented to mitigate invasive species’ impacts, which often interact synergistically and collectively comprise some of the greatest threats to global biodiversity. At the 2014 International Ornithological Congress in Tokyo, Japan, researchers convened a symposium to address research and management of invasive species to benefit Pacific island bird conservation. Speakers presented research and conservation efforts from Japan, Korea, Guam, the Galapagos, and New Zealand, highlighting novel, poorly known threats to birds (e.g., mortality from invasive plant entanglement and invasive nest parasites) and providing updates on ongoing efforts to prevent island endemic species extinctions driven by invasive predators. In this paper we provide new details of research and conservation efforts on Swinhoe’s storm petrel (Oceanodroma monhris), the Okinawa rail (Gallirallus okinawae), and the Guam rail (G. owstoni), and put this research in context by briefly reviewing and synthesizing other relevant, recent studies on impacts of invasive species as they affect Pacific island bird conservation. We conclude by highlighting successful management strategies, recommending improvements for ongoing conservation efforts, and suggesting directions for future research.

James Francis Monk (1915-2014)

James Francis Monk (1915-2014)

Editorial of the Proceedings of the 25th International Ornithological Congress

It is a pleasure to present the Proceedings of the 25th International Ornithological Congress (IOC), which was held in Campos do Jordao, Brazil, from 22 to 28 August 2010. This meeting marked the first time the IOC took place in Latin America, and almost 1,150 participants from 57 countries attended. A highlight of the Congress was the inauguration and launching of the International Ornithological Union, a major event for ornithologists and ornithological societies worldwide. These Proceedings are published online as a supplement of the Journal of Ornithology. They include papers by both Plenary and Symposia keynote speakers. A wide range of subdisciplines within ornithology are covered and reviewed here. We sincerely hope you enjoy these Proceedings! We thank all authors and reviewers, Franz Bairlein— Editor of the Journal of Ornithology, the entire Editorial Board of the Journal of Ornithology, and the editorial office at Springer for their support.

Linking sexual selection and behavioral isolation in a colorful species of stream fish, Etheostoma barrenense

Linking sexual selection and behavioral isolation in a colorful species of stream fish, Etheostoma barrenense

IN MEMORIAM: CAMILLE FERRY, 1921–2007

Camille Ferry, Honorary Fellow of the AOU since 1982, passed away on 24 September 2007. Born in Dijon, France, on 15 June 1921, he was educated locally, completing his studies in medicine in Dijon. Medicine is a tradition in his family; his mother and one of his sons are physicians. In 1943, Camille was intern and Chief of Clinic in a hospital in Paris, until he voluntarily joined the Leclerc Division of the French army in 1944. His meritorious military service as Head Doctor earned him the prestigious award “Legion d’honneur.” After World War II, he served as surgeon and practiced in a private clinic before becoming, in 1967, Professor of Surgery at the University of Medicine and Head of Surgical Service in the main hospital of Dijon. In 1988, he retired as a surgeon but remained extremely active in ornithology. This exceptionally active man actually led two parallel lives. He was primarily a renowned surgeon as well as a very active ornithologist. He trained in natural history with famous naturalists such as Paul Paris and Henri Jouard. In the early 1950s, Camille was a pioneer in devising new techniques of bird censusing. In 1966, during the XIV International Ornithological Congress in Oxford, he organized a small meeting with a handful of European ornithologists interested in bird censuses. This was the origin of the International Bird Census Committee (IBCC), which subsequently merged with the European Atlas Committee in the European Bird Census Council (EBCC) that is still very active in atlas and monitoring projects. This so-called “French school” of quantitative ornithology, with these new techniques of bird census (e.g., Studies in Avian Biology 6:414–420, 1981), resulted in a series of groundbreaking studies on the structure and dynamics of bird communities in forested habitats. Camille contributed significantly to the study of bird communities in ecological successions (e.g., Proceedings 16th International Ornithological Congress: 643–653, 1976), which made him an expert on the consequences of forestmanagement techniques on bird species assemblages. His studies and those of his associates have been used to compare the fates of bird communities in the managed forests of western Europe with those of the remaining tracts of forest that are still more-or-less pristine in eastern Europe (e.g., the Bialowieza forest in Poland). The Auk 125(2):502–503, 2008  The American Ornithologists’ Union, 2008. Printed in USA.

25th International Ornithological Congress 2010, 22–28 August 2010, Campos do Jordão, Brazil, Call for symposium proposals

25th International Ornithological Congress 2010, 22–28 August 2010, Campos do Jordão, Brazil, Call for symposium proposals

24th International Ornithological Congress, Hamburg, Germany, 13–19 August 2006

24th International Ornithological Congress, Hamburg, Germany, 13–19 August 2006

Janet Kear OBE, 1933–2004

Janet Kear OBE, 1933–2004

Phylogeny and comparative biogeography of Pionopsitta parrots and Pteroglossus toucans

Studies of Neotropical birds, and their distributions and areas of endemism, in particular, have been central in the formulation of hypotheses proposed to explain the high species diversity in the Neotropics. We used mtDNA sequence data (ATPase 6 and 8, COI, and cyt b) to reconstruct the species-level phylogenies for two genera, Pionopsitta (Aves: Psittacidae) and Pteroglossus (Aves: Ramphastidae), compare our results with previous morphology-based phylogenetic analyses, and estimate the absolute timing of lineage and biogeographic divergences. Both the Pionopsitta and Pteroglossus phylogenies support a hypothesis of area relationships in which a divergence of the Serra do Mar (Atlantic Forest, Brazil) region of endemism is followed by the divergence of cis- and trans-Andean regions, then a split between the upper and lower Amazon basin, next the divergence of the Guyana area, and finally diversification of taxa in the upper Amazon basin’s areas of endemism. Phylogenies of both genera support a hypothesis of area relationships that is similar to that proposed by Prum [XIX International Ornithological Congress (1988), 2562] for high-vagility species, but while they agree on the relative timing of area divergence (vicariance) events, they yield different absolute time estimates for those divergences when the typical avian mtDNA clock calibration is used. Taken at face value, the time estimates indicate that both genera began to diversify before the start of the Pleistocene, and that climatic and habitat shifts alone do not account for the diversification of these taxa.

IN MEMORIAM: JANET KEAR, 1933–2004

The eminent British ornithologist Janet Kear died, after a short illness, on 24 November 2004 at the age of 71. An Honorary Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU), she was remarkable for her pioneering studies of wildfowl, her contributions to waterbird conservation, and for inspiring a generation of researchers and aviculturalists. Many of today's leading ornithologists and conservationists attribute their choice of career, or its subsequent development, to fruitful discussions at Janet's dinner table. Born in London, Janet spent some years at Caspar Junior College in Wyoming, but returned to Britain to complete her education. After her first degree at King's College, London, she studied the feeding behavior of finches under R. A. Hinde at Cambridge University and gained her Ph.D. in 1959. Shortly afterwards, she became Research Scientist at the Wildfowl Trust (now the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust [WWT]), the organization founded by Peter Scott, where her first husband, Geoffrey Matthews, was Director of Research and Conservation. Janet was initially involved in the project to protect the endangered Hawaiian Goose (the Nene), which included a captive breeding program to reintroduce the birds to the wild. During the 1960s and early 1970s, she published on subjects as diverse as behavior, cognition, and the regulation of avian breeding cycles. Perhaps her most important studies were those on the potential conflict between goose grazing and agriculture at a time when the birds were first moving onto arable land. She also developed a keen interest in assessing the health of captive waterbird populations, with a view to improving husbandry techniques. In 1977, Janet was appointed Curator of the WWT Centre at Martin Mere in Lancashire, and she was Director responsible for all WWT Centres from 1991 until her retirement in 1993. These two roles added substantially to her administrative workload, yet she managed to retain her research interests and to be actively involved in ornithological work outside her base at WWT. She was a major force in the British Ornithologists' Union (BOU), as a member of council from 1980 to 1994 and as President from 1990 to 1994. From 1980 to 1988, she was Editor of The Ibis. From 1989 to 2001, she edited Wildfowl, the WWT's journal. Generous with her time, Janet served as council member for the Study of Animal Behaviour, the Avicultural Society, the British Trust for Ornithology, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust, and English Nature. Her substantial international reputation included chairing the Endangered Waterfowl Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature from 1976 to 1987. She was on the committee of the International Ornithological Congress from 1982 to 1998, and was vicepresident at its 1998 meeting in Durban. Under Janet's leadership, Martin Mere, one of the United Kingdom's leading wetland reserves and a major visitor attraction, fully achieved the aim of bringing birds and people together. There she met her second husband, John Turner, himself a keen ornithologist, and their legendary hospitality was received by people from all walks of life. Her sharp intellect made it difficult for her to suffer fools gladly, but people were quickly won to her warmth and generosity. She was particularly aware of the importance of encouraging the next generation, and was tireless in helping those aspiring to careers in animal husbandry, research, and conservation.

Ned K. Johnson, 1932–2003

Ned K. Johnson, for many years Curator of Birds at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, died on 11 June 2003. He had served as President of both the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. He was America's foremost authority on the taxonomy and biogeography of the birds of western North America and his research and expertise extended from the field to the museum and into the molecular laboratory. Ned Johnson was born in Reno, Nevada, on 3 November 1932; he grew up in Reno and attended the University of Nevada, graduating in 1954. By that time he was already enamoured of birds and had begun publishing his natural history observations in journals such as Condor and the Great Basin Naturalist. He served with the US Army Medical Service in Germany from 1954 to 1956 and subsequently entered graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley. For his doctoral research, Ned worked on determining species status in sibling species of New World tyrannid flycatchers in the difficult genus Empidonax. His was one of the first studies to involve tape recordings and playback experiments on the breeding grounds. Upon completion of his PhD, Ned was hired as a faculty member at the University of California and its associated Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Ned took up the path of his predecessors, Joseph Grinnell and Alden Miller, the latter his doctoral dissertation advisor. Like them, he felt a deep affection for the fauna, flora and landscapes of the western United States, and especially for those of the Sierra Nevada and the Great Basin ranges. At the end of each academic year, he would pack up his truck and spend much of the summer collecting specimens at localities carefully chosen to elucidate taxonomic or biogeographical problems. Ned was also an avid fly fisherman, and so the summers in the mountains gave him the opportunity to pursue this pastime. Ned continued studies of Empidonax and other tyrannid flycatchers throughout his career. More generally, however, he was interested in taxa that were morphologically or vocally differentiated across the western US. He was never a prisoner of the past; as new techniques were developed and shown to be useful, Ned adopted them. Thus, his second monograph on Empidonax in 1980 included multivariate morphometric analyses, a computer-based technique that had not been available at the time of his PhD dissertation. Allozyme studies of intraspecific variation became feasible at about this same time, and Ned incorporated them into his research. This led to the inclusion of liquid nitrogen dewars on his field trips. We both remember his stories of misadventures in South America with authorities confronted with ‘smoking’ nitrogen tanks for the first time. By 1990, mitochondrial DNA studies became feasible and Ned pursued this research for all his favourite groups. Incorporation of molecular techniques led to an interest in higher level systematics, something he had not shown much interest in beforehand. In all these studies Ned made lasting contributions; our knowledge of variation and speciation of the avifauna of western North America was profoundly affected by his unflagging and technologically evolving attention. For his research, Ned was awarded the AOU's Brewster Medal, the highest honour that the society can bestow. In addition to his research, Ned was very active in academic ornithology at local, national and international levels. He taught the undergraduate ornithology course at UC Berkeley throughout his tenure and earned the affection of students with local field trips; in the spring, for example, he required his natural history class to meet before first light at Tilden Park in the Berkeley Hills to experience the dawn chorus. Although Ned did not take on large numbers of graduate students, many of those who received their degrees under his guidance also worked on problems in speciation and geographical variation in birds and subsequently went on to occupy major academic and museum positions. Ned took on many leadership roles in American ornithology in addition to serving terms as President of its two major professional organizations. For three decades he was an active force in the AOU's Committee on Classification and Nomenclature – the arbiters of the official Checklist of North American birds. He enjoyed travelling to the International Ornithological Congresses every four years and served as a permanent member of the International Ornithological Committee. At meetings he was gregarious and especially complimentary to students and beginning ornithologists; consequently, his friendships extended to every generation of active researchers. Ned was an outstanding figure in twentieth century North American ornithology. His legacy includes a coterie of well-respected students, a series of classic papers, and a much-revised understanding of the biogeography and species status of western North American birds.

Richard Liversidge, 1926–2003

Richard Liversidge, 1926–2003

IN MEMORIAM: STEPHEN MARCHANT, 1912–2003

Stephen Marchant, who died at age 91 September 2003 his adopted country, Australia, was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the AOU 1974. Stephen was born England on 11 August 1912. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and went up to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, 1935. a field geologist with Shell Oil, he was able to study birds the Middle East, Africa, Borneo, and Ecuador. A steady flow of ornithological publications resulted. In 1971 he was awarded the Union Medal of the British Ornithologists' Union in recognition of eminent services to ornithology and to the Union. After settling Australia 1963, he was the instigator of the 1966 Canberra-based push to reinvigorate the Royal Australian Ornithologists' Union (RAOU). He became editor of their journal, The Emu, 1968. By 1974, at the time of the first southern-hemisphere meeting of the International Ornithological Congress Canberra, Stephen had changed the tone of The Emu. I am reminded of the words of Tommy Garnett (Emu 82: 241-243): As editor, he seized the Emu, tied up its somewhat bedraggled feathers and lifted its head so that it could face the inspection of international ornithology without apologyand made enemies on the way.... Stephen was intent on compelling the professional scientist to write English and the amateur to write science. Both groups found the exercise.. .painful. By the early 1980s the RAOU took the bold step of promoting the compilation of a comprehensive handbook of the birds of Australia and New Zealand (HANZAB), with Stephen as its chief editor. In 1997, he was awarded the John Hobbs medal for his contributions to Australian Ornithology as an amateur. In 1994, he became an honorary member of the general division of the Order of Australia (AM) for his service to ornithology and conservation. More complete obituaries appeared Canberra Bird Notes (2003), and The Island Naturalist (2003-2004), each with a portrait.

ERNST MAYR AT 100: A LIFE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF ORNITHOLOGY

On the occasion of Ernst Mayr's recent passing, it is interesting to examine his career with two themes in mind: (1) the role of accidental events that fell his way and how he responded to them, and (2) his work within and ornithology and how each affected the other. Most important is that his central interests as a naturalist profoundly influenced all his empirical and theoretical work. His outlook as a naturalist, his broad empirical studies, and his ornithological knowledge permitted him significant new insights into the history and philosophy of biology. He showed that an understanding of the biology of a group of organisms, such as birds, provides a valid foundation for advances in biology. Resumen. Con motivo del deceso reciente de Ernst Mayr, es interesante examinar su carrera teniendo en mente dos temas: (1) el rol de los eventos accidentales que interrumpieron su camino y como el respondio a los mismos, y (2) su trabajo dentro y fuera de la ornitologia y como uno afecto al otro. Lo mas importante es que su interes central como naturalista influencio profundamente todo su trabajo empirico y teorico. Su perspectiva como naturalista, sus estudios empiricos amplios y su conocimiento ornitologico le permitieron brindar significativos puntos de vista nuevos en cuanto a la historia y la filosofia de la biologia. El mostro que el entendimiento de la biologia de un grupo de organismos como las aves brinda una base valida para avances en biologia. Long ago on 5 July 1904, just six months after the first powered flight by humans at Kittyhawk, North Carolina a person was born in a small town in Bavaria, Germany, who was to earn fame through his studies of another group of flying creatures. To put that date in proper perspective for ornithologists, it was the year before the 4th International Ornithological Congress in London and five years before the publication of the last volume of R. Bowler Sharpe's A Hand-list of the Genera and Species of Birds. And the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) had just attained its majority, having reached its 21st year. I refer, of course, to Ernst Walter Mayr, who celebrated his 100th birthday on 5 July 2004 and who passed away on 3 February 2005 at the Carleton-Willard Village, Bedford, Massachusetts, where he had lived since September 1997 (Bock 2005). 'Revised from Bock 2004a. 2E-mail: wb4Ciocolumbia.edu Ma y ornithologists have had long lives and others have reached the century mark, including Wilhelm Meiseanother doctoral student of Professor Erwin Stresemann and a student colleague of Ernst Mayr in Berlin during the mid-1920s. Although Mayr turned to other areas of inquiry later in his career, he trained as an ornithologist, made his name as an ornithologist, and remained most interested in avian biology. Other areas of study such as evolution, the hist ry of biology, and the philosophy of biology may claim Mayr as one of their own, but ornithology retained his primary allegiance. Some years ago, while discussing several earlier workers, Mayr made the comment to me that Stresemann never ventured scientifically ornithology, a remark I found very interesting. On further reflection, it was clear that Stresemann was, in that way, similar to many well-known students of avian biology. Mayr, on the other hand, went well beyond the boundaries of ornithology and was just as successful in other fields of work. It is this venturing outside that makes Mayr's career so fascinating.