📖 doi.org/10.1007/s106...
@amcuervo.bsky.social
@cdanielcadena.bsky.social
@birdmapper.bsky.social
@mhcneateclegg.bsky.social
@julisoto.bsky.social
@UNALoficial
@MincienciasCo
@inst_humboldt

🔬 I led this research as a doctoral student at @UNALoficial, together with a great team of collaborators in Colombia and the US. This work shows that museum collections are time machines — letting us track how species change through time.

🌍 Most bird research focuses on temperate regions — yet tropical forests hold 70% of the world’s bird diversity. This study shows that even "buffered" rainforests experience complex morphological responses to environmental change.

🌡️ Human-induced disturbances aren’t just changing temperatures and rainfall, or driving extinctions and invasions — they may also be quietly reshaping the bodies of the species that survive in these altered landscapes.

🧐 While exact developmental or ecological mechanisms remain unclear, smaller bodies may shed heat better, and longer tails improve maneuverability in dense forests.

📊- Hummingbirds: mostly smaller (strong evidence in 1 species)
- Other birds: mostly larger (strong evidence in 3 species)
- Tails: 4.4% longer (61% of species)
- Bills: deeper in 43% of species

🔍 The detective work: I meticulously measured museum specimens from the 1912 and 2021 expeditions — 23 forest-resident species, 9 morphological traits, repeated measurements, thousands of data points. The result? A century-long window into how birds are reshaping before our eyes.

⏰ In 1912, an AMNH expedition collected birds in Barbacoas, SW Colombia. In 2021, we followed their century-old trail back into the same forest (still >90% intact). This created a rare 109-year natural experiment to reveal how birds respond to environmental change.