specimen-based research on Neotropical birds
I'm a post-doctoral scientist working in the Bermingham lab at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Naos Laboratories in Panama. My research focuses on the diversification of Neotropical birds and the diseases they carry. I employ a variety of research methods, but the collection and use of museum voucher specimens is a central theme of my work.
The Neotropics harbor the greatest species diversity for most animal groups. Integrating the age-old specimen-based approach of the museum scientist with the new tools emerging during the “Age of DNA” provides remarkably powerful tools for investigating the basic patterns in species richness in Neotropical bird communities.
For example, the latitudinal gradient in species richness is likely the most-often observed pattern in ecology, and at least in temperate-zone species, is paralleled by a latitudinal gradient in within-species genetic diversity. Recently, however, colleagues and I demonstrated that for nine species of Neotropical birds, genetic diversity peaks in the center of the range, decoupling the relationship between the latitudinal gradient in species richness and the geographic of genetic variation (Miller et al. 2010. Ecol. Letters). Read more about my research by clicking on the tabs to the right.
