Bird migration is one of our world’s most celebrated natural wonders. But how and why did bird migration evolve? The answer to this question may seem obvious (birds fly south for the winter, of course!) but like any interesting scientific question, the answer becomes more complex the more we learn. When and where did the migratory patterns we see today originate? How can we possibly answer this question given that birds have a poor fossil record? Why do migratory birds fly so far during migration, only to come back to the very same breeding locations each year? Why don’t more birds hibernate instead of migrating? Ben Winger will discuss research that he has been conducting for the past 15 years on these and other questions related to the evolution of bird migration. He will share what he has learned about the evolution of migration and outline the questions that remain difficult to answer. He will also discuss how learning about the evolution of bird migration informs the conservation of migratory birds in our rapidly changing world.
Ben Winger is assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan, where he is also the curator of birds at the university’s Museum of Zoology. Ben is an ornithologist and evolutionary biologist with broad interests in the ecology, behavior, and evolution of birds. His research on the evolution of bird migration has won awards from the American Ornithological Society, the Ecological Society of America, and the Society of Systematic Biologists, and has been featured in popular media such as Radiolab, National Geographic Magazine, and Living Bird. Ben received his B.A. from Cornell University in 2007 and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2015. He and his students study a wide variety of questions related to bird speciation, migration, and conservation.