The Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology Presents: Preserved but not forgotten, How preserved eggs continue to provide insights into avian ecology

Fri, September 24, 2021

6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

Online Event*

Please join them for an evening of information and research with Professor Daniel Hanley.

Dr. Daniel Hanley is Assistant Professor of Biology at George Mason University. Hanley studies the function and evolution of natural colors, and specializes on the coloration of birds’ eggs.

His research has contributed to our understanding of how phenotypes are shaped by environmental and ecological pressures. In this talk Hanley will share how he has used objective color measurements of eggs preserved in natural history collections to study trait diversity, interspecific interactions, and how climate shapes eggshell colors around the globe. Specifically, his research has uncovered that the (limited) diversity of colors found in birds’ eggs can be explained by relatively few eggshell pigments, including two newly discovered eggshell pigments.

This variation in coloration is vital for how hosts of avian brood parasites can recognize and remove a parasite’s egg. He will share how he has used these data from the natural history collections to explore such interspecific dynamics, and how the next generation of students and citizen scientists can use natural history collections to discover how host communities shape the phenotypes of their parasites.

Finally, he will share how these pressures interface with environmental conditions, such as temperature and ultraviolet radiation, to shape the eggshell phenotypes we find in avian communities around the world.

Register with Zoom link for this event

For tickets visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-bird-museums-september-conservation-seminar-series-tickets-154455433359

For more information visit www.wfvz.org