The British Ornithologists’ Club and the Linnean Society of London collaborated to host this event in celebration of the 1000th meeting of the BOC. The speaker for this talk was Prof Jon Fjeldså who holds a MSc from Bergen University (Norway) and a Dr.Sci. from Copenhagen University, where he is now professor in biodiversity and in charge of the bird collections of the Zoological Museum.
Prof Jon Fjeldså’s talk, ‘The Evolution of Passerine Birds Explained’, discussed how classifying birds from morphology has never been easy, and resolving the evolutionary relationships among passerine birds has proven especially challenging. The talk explored new perceptions and interpretations about the generation of avian diversity and variation over time, and demonstrated that the complex world-wide pattern of bird species diversity was driven by relatively few life-history shifts and geographic expansions. However, the talk also highlights remaining problem areas in resolving the tree of life, where further progress requires more and better data. The age of exploration must continue!
The talk is available to watch on the BOC YouTube channel.
