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Martin Stervander πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆπŸ¦πŸ‘
@nesospiza
Singing evolutionary biologist, ornithologist, insulaphile. PhD researching #birds. Senior Curator . Man Ed , AE . He/him.
London (prev. US, SE, ZA, AU)stervander.comJoined May 2011

Martin Stervander πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆπŸ¦πŸ‘β€™s Tweets

Read #OpenAccess in about how these stunners struggle. #Arctic #waders/#shorebirds are vulnerable to #ClimateChange, and the breeding success can be tracked from long-term #BirdRinging data during migration. #birds #ornithology doi.org/10.34080/os.v3
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New study out today in @OrnisSvecica on changes in numbers and phenology of Little Stints at Ottenby Bird Observatory (@OttenbyBO), Sweden, over the last 75 years. doi.org/10.34080/os.v3
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The pandemic taught us things can be done online, if need be. Yet, hunting for a rental flat in #Edinburgh, several agents won't consider candidate tenants unless they physically attend a viewing (scheduled at 1–few days' notice) & won't offer online viewing. πŸ€” Welcome to town!
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This is #museomics in all is glory! Awesome story and thread, , can't wait to read the paper. And Spanish version available - see last tweet! #birds #ornithology
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For the past few years I've been obsessed with the question of where Cuban bobwhites came - are they native or introduced, where did they come from, and when did they get there? Super excited to share our findings, out now in Molecular Ecology! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.11
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I'd like to take this opportunity to pivot to an iconic US endemic we *KNOW* still exists and that is *GOING TO BE EXTINCT* in the next 30 years if we don't do something drastic, fast. The Saltmarsh Sparrow:
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The ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird presumed to be exctinct but one that has become a kind of Holy Grail for American birders, still exists, a new study suggests. But some scientists are skeptical, saying the evidence is on this β€œvery poor video.” nyti.ms/3Ml9gvW
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On this #IDAHOBIT I've learned that a formal complaint was filed against me for calling out another researcher for #transphobia. I'll think about *how* I'll best communicate such things, but I won't stand for #transphobia, #homophobia, or #biphobia, now or ever. Over and out.
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The theme for the 2023 edition of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia will be β€œTogether always: united in diversity”. (Text from may17.org) #LGBTQIA #LGBTplusHM #educateOUTprejudice
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#PeerReview isn't the arena for being sarcastic & mean. If you can't be constructive in your criticism, decline the referee request. And #ScientificJournal #editors, can we try not to let through crap like this, ok? So sorry you got this crap, . Thanks for sharing.
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I'm working on submitting the first chapter of my dissertation for publication, so thought I'd share a blurb from the first peer review I ever received. It's from my first first-author publication, from my master's research.
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Gotta love bringing some order to #bird #taxonomy! Pardon me, bringing some family, that is... Awesome, , , , Robert Moyle & . #ornithology #birds #Eurocephalus #Eurocephalidae #TerriblePuns
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Out in @AmOrnith, we show with thousands of genomic loci that Eurocephalus, a long questioned shrike genus, is more closely related to crows than "true shrikes" Read why Eurocephalus shrikes should comprise their own separate family: Eurocephalidae πŸ‘‡ bit.ly/44ZJG8a
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These brown beauties deserve the spotlight, as part of a thread to explain our rationale for splitting the predominantly #African #lark genus Mirafra (in the broad sense) into four genera: Mirafra (narrow sense), Amirafra, Plocealauda, and Corypha. #birds #taxonomy #ornithology
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β†’ (1) Mirafra cantillans, (2) Amirafra rufocinnamomea, (3) Plocealauda assamica, and (4) Corypha africana (sensu stricto). β†’
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Singing Bushlark (Mirafra cantillans) by Koshy Koshy (https://www.flickr.com/photos/kkoshy/35788711384/) under CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/).
Flappet Lark (Amirafra rufocinnamomea) by Nigel Voaden (https://www.flickr.com/photos/nvoaden/16025285505) under CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/).
Bengal Bushlark (Plocealauda assamica) by J. M. Garg (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bengal_bushlark_%28Mirafra_assamica%29_in_Kolkata_W_IMG_4596.jpg) under GFDL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License).
Rufous-naped Lark (Mirafra africana) by Derek Keats (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dkeats/10478670205/) under CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/).
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This is an awesome thread on what looks like an awesome paper. Something for folks to think aboutβ€”mainly for the biology of #sex, but secondarily also for what it means when we turn to nature to refer to what's "natural". Congrats , , et al.!
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so thrilled to see this out in @ICB_journal today!! thanks so much to @jacanamama and @kb_kinsey for all your work in making this paper happen, and to our amazing undergrad coauthors for their work on the lit search! academic.oup.com/icb/advance-ar
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‼️ πŸ΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ ΏπŸ°πŸ¦‰LIFE UPDATEπŸ¦‰πŸ°πŸ΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ Ώβ€ΌοΈ I'm thrilled to announce my next big move. Come mid-August, I will take up the role as Senior Curator of #Birds at National Museums Scotland ( at ) in Edinburgh! Visit me, ok? First permanent job in a couple of decades... 1/4
National Museums Scotland on Chambers Street in Edinburgh. An amazing museum with wide-ranging exhibitions, that I get to call my place of work! Photo by Spoke Wintersparv (@wintersparv).
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#CollectionsAreEssential, but not only existing ones. The collections we build today are the only shot we have at robustly documenting and describing biodiversity right now. This will be true every single day going forward. Today is tomorrow's history. #CollectingIsEssential.
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This paper calls for scientists to stop collecting specimens. Unfortunately, that will lead to greater taxonomic confusion and will make the research non-repeatable/invalid. Reimagining the future of natural history museums with compassionate collection dx.plos.org/10.1371/journa
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β†’ They're not obviously more similar than for example the European genera Alauda and Galerida, here exemplified by (1) Skylark Alauda arvensis and (2) Crested Lark Galerida cristata. β†’
Eurasian Skylark (Alauda arvensis) by Imran Shah (https://www.flickr.com/photos/gilgit2/48088896288/) under CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/).
Crested Lark (Galerida cristata) by Frans Vandewalle (https://www.flickr.com/photos/snarfel/3233962884) under CC BY-NC 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/).
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β†’ (1) Mirafra cantillans, (2) Amirafra rufocinnamomea, (3) Plocealauda assamica, and (4) Corypha africana (sensu stricto). β†’
Singing Bushlark (Mirafra cantillans) by Koshy Koshy (https://www.flickr.com/photos/kkoshy/35788711384/) under CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/).
Flappet Lark (Amirafra rufocinnamomea) by Nigel Voaden (https://www.flickr.com/photos/nvoaden/16025285505) under CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/).
Bengal Bushlark (Plocealauda assamica) by J. M. Garg (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bengal_bushlark_%28Mirafra_assamica%29_in_Kolkata_W_IMG_4596.jpg) under GFDL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License).
Rufous-naped Lark (Mirafra africana) by Derek Keats (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dkeats/10478670205/) under CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/).
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β†’this has become a "trashbin genus" into which brown, somewhat similar-looking species in Africa and Asia have been placed. Mind you, species that originally belonged to different genera, so this is through taxonomic revisions. And here are examples of the four main clades: β†’
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β†’making not very closely related groups reather similar due to similar adaptations. On the other hand, there are several cases of pronounced divergent evolution, where one species is just strikingly different than all its congeners. So for Mirafra (sensu lato)β†’
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→that are split in different genera. And yes, bird taxonomy has traditionally relied much on plumage and structural morphological differences. Which is why lark taxonomy has been particularly troublesome, because on the one hand, there's a lot of convergent evolution going on→
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Thanks, Hugo! That's a reasonable question. First, why? Precisely for the balance. It is unreasonable to have a gigantic predominantly African genus that comprises 25% of species diversity (!), with genetic AND phenotypic divergence on par or deeper than European clades→
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Replying to @nesospiza
Martin, congrats on this huge effort Curious as to why you feel the need to β€œbalance” the taxonomy? Are new traits just… lurking (a-ha!) around? I believe bird taxonomy generally realizes a lot on color patterns. Does it make it difficult to find consensual traits in brown 🐦?
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We provide a full classification of the family, whichβ€”by our definitionβ€”now comprises 103 species. This study is made possible by loads of fieldwork contributorsβ€”and the uncomparable treasure held in natural history museum collections like ! End 🧡
Some of Alfred Russel Wallace's specimens held at the Natural History Museum UK (Tring), whose photo this is (see https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/collections/zoology-collections/bird-skin-collections.html).
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The Corypha complex is fascinating, and reflects how neglected African bird taxonomy can sometimes be. A huge diversity has been lumped and sorted in rather strange ways. But let's return to that once our Corypha paper is out! 10/
Somali Lark Corypha (ex-Mirafra) somalica. Photo by Nik Borrow (https://www.flickr.com/photos/nikborrow/49610249881/) under CC BY-NC 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/).
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Finally, preceding a very detailed integrative taxonomy investigation of some of the Corypha (previously Mirafra) larks (stay tuned!), we propose a fair reshuffling! With 4–5 species going in, we "kill" C. ashi, and still recover 9 species going out! 9/
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Even with over a million SNPs, some relationship are notoriously tricky to resolve: particularly the exact placement of the genera Alaudala and Lullula. More details in the paper! 8/
Phylogenomic analyses uncovering the position of Alaudala and Lullula in a phylogenetic tree.
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Based on our results, we also propose a subfamily classification of the lark family (Alaudidae): ✦ Alaudinae Vigors, 1825 ✦ Certhilaudinae Le Maout, 1852 ✦ Mirafrinae Bianchi, 1905 This again lead to extensive nomenclatural sidetracks: twitter.com/nesospiza/stat 7/
A certhilaudine lark, the Greater Hoopoe-Lark Alaemon alaudipes. Photo by Supreet Sahoo, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Greater_Hoopoe_Lark_-_Kutch.jpg).
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Larks in the proposed subfamily Certhilaudinae, from Figure 2 of AlstrΓΆm et al. (2023) Avian Research.
So, it turns out I made some really stupid mistakes with #nomenclature for #larks… My co-authors made some others. Together, we simply made an embarrassing mess. This was spotted by the #ornithology/#birds community from "advance online" pre-proofs, and pointed out online. πŸ§΅β†’
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