Seminar cancelled

Summary

Recent technological and methodological advances in biogeography, phylogenetics, and bioinformatics provide refreshing insights into the evolutionary history of birds in space and time. Molecular data, especially next-generation DNA sequencing, have produced a revolution in reconstructing the phylogenetic history of lineages. These advances shed a new light on the mode, tempo, and spatial context of differentiation processes that shaped the composition and structure of extant forest bird communities. I will present a framework for understanding this history based on analytical tools that allow us to decipher the imprint of changes in the geographic configuration of land masses and in climates since the Mesozoic, with a focus on the temperate-tropical flyways that connect the massive forest blocks of the Northern to those of the Southern Hemispheres. Geographical connections between tropical and temperate realms make north-south flyways important drivers of differentiation for many lineages.

Recent publications:

Blondel, J. 2018. Origins and dynamics of forest birds in the Northern Hemisphere. Pages 11-50 in Grzegorz Mikusinski, Jean-Michel Roberge & Robert Fuller (eds.). Ecology and Conservation of Forest Birds. Cambridge University Press.

Blondel, J. 2021. Origin, diversification, and biogeography of forest birds across temperate forest regions in the Northern Hemisphere. Frontiers of Biogeography. In Press