The Biodiversity of Birds

Episode: 3

Summary

Birds are an incredibly successful and diverse group of animals. 

In this episode, you’ll get an overview of the origin of avian species diversity and its present-day distribution across the planet.

I offer some definitions of ‘biodiversity’ with respect to birds. We’ll discuss why this diversity is important.

Links to Some Things Mentioned in this Episode

• Clements Checklist of the Birds of the World

Research Citations‍

• Genetic research leading to the species split between the Winter Wren and Pacific Wren (Toews and Irwin. 2008. Molecular Ecology)

Errors and Clarifications
Clarification - 07:25 - I say that the Clements Checklist has 10,721 bird species. This is true. However, this number includes about 160 extinct species. So this means there are 10,561 extant (i.e. living, non-extinct) bird species on the planet today.

Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website

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