Pamela C. Rasmussen
Assistant Professor
Assistant Curator
Ph.D., University of Kansas, 1990
317 Museum
Office Telephone: 517-432-0872
rasmus39@msu.edu
Research website
Systematics, Evolutaionay Ecology, and Conservation of South Asian and African Birds
My research involves a range of organismal-level projects, including systematics at and near the species level of birds of Asia emphasizing morphological and vocal characters. I am interested in improving knowledge of avian diversity and distribution patterns to inform conservation efforts. Research that went into preparing a specimen database and maps for Birds of South Asia: the Ripley Guide (Lynx Edicions and the Smithsonian Institution) also led to my involvement in a global hotspots consortium that has resulted in the first database and analyses of global distributions for all birds. Since 1998, co-authors and I have described six Asian bird species new to science. Another collaboration involves research on avian diversity and systematics in the eastern Himalayas, for which we conducted field work in northern Myanmar in 2006. Some of my research involves the applications and reliability of museum specimen data for mapping, taxonomy, and diversity estimation. Our analysis of the largest case of scientific fraud known in ornithology has been profiled in The New Yorker (29 May 2006, pp. 50-61) and reprinted in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007 (R. Preston, ed., Houghton Mifflin). Planned collaborative research involves determining how habitat factors impact bird-parasite interactions in Tanzanian rainforests, one of the world’s most threatened biodiversity hotspots. To help transmit ornithological museum traditions to a new generation, I train students in bird specimen preparation and other museum techniques. In the area of educational research, I am collaborating on a NSF-CCLI-funded project (to P. Myers, University of Michigan) in which students use the Animal Diversity Website database for inquiry-based analyses of key concepts in organismal biology. I’m involved with Study Abroad programs to Uganda, Madagascar, and Antarctica.
Representative Publications
Grenyer, R., C.D.L. Orme, S.F. Jackson, G.H. Thomas, R.G. Davies, T.J. Davies, K.E. Jones, V.A. Olson, R.S. Ridgely, P.C. Rasmussen, T.S. Ding, P.M. Bennett, T.M. Blackburn, K.J. Gaston, J.L. Gittleman, and I.P.F. Owens. 2006. The global distribution and conservation of rare and threatened vertebrates. Nature 444: 93-96.
Johnson, J.A., H.R.L. Lerner, P.C. Rasmussen, & D.P. Mindell. 2006. Systematics within Gyps vultures: a clade at risk. BMC-Evol. Biol. 6: 65.
Rasmussen, P.C. & J.C. Anderton. 2005. Birds of South Asia: the Ripley guide. 2 vols. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
Hennache, A., P.C. Rasmussen, V. Lucchini, S. Rimoldi, & E. Randi. 2003. Hybrid origin of the imperial pheasant Lophura imperialis (Delacour & Jabouille 1924) demonstrated by morphology, hybrid experiments, and DNA analyses. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 80: 573–600.
Rasmussen, P.C. and R.P. Prŷs-Jones. 2003. History vs. mystery: the reliability of museum specimen data. Pp. 66–94 in: N.J. Collar, C.T. Fisher, & C.J. Feare (eds.). Why museums matter: avian archives in an age of extinction. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club 123A: 1–360.
Olson, S.L. and P.C. Rasmussen. 2001. Survey of a Middle Miocene and a very extensive Early Pliocene avifauna from the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina. In: C.E. Ray & D.J. Bohaska (eds.). Geology and Paleontology of the Lee Creek Mine, III. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 90: 233–365.