More and more birders have been expanding their quest beyond their home area to the entire country and to the great wide world. In this talk, Doug Futuyma will share some of the thrill and satisfaction of seeing exotic species in exotic environments, from rain forest cassowaries to subantarctic albatrosses and desert larks. He will also pose and partly answer some of the questions that these experiences prompt about evolution. Why have some groups of birds diversified more than others? How do new species form? How can we account for giant flightless birds on all the southern continents? Why are there so many more species of birds in the tropics? Doug will aim to show that esthetic appreciation and scientific understanding together can enrich the experience of birding.
Douglas J. Futuyma is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University. His research concerns speciation and the evolution of interactions between species, especially herbivorous insects and their host plants.