The Biodiversity of Birds
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Episode: 3
Summary
Birds are an incredibly successful and diverse group of animals.\\xa0
In this episode, you\\u2019ll get an overview of the origin of avian species diversity and its present-day distribution across the planet.
I offer some definitions of \\u2018biodiversity\\u2019 with respect to birds. We\\u2019ll discuss why this diversity is important.
Links to Some Things Mentioned in this Episode
Research Citations\\u200d
- 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.