Meet the Scientist

Name: Tom Schulenberg
Position/Title: Conservation Ecologist / Ornithologist
Department: Environmental and Conservation Programs

1. What do you study related to biodiversity (what are your research questions, what organisms do you work on)?

I am primarily an ornithologist, and a conservationist. My goal is to preserve biological diversity and threatened habitats, using birds as "indicators" of habitat quality and to identify habitats or regions that are worthy of protection.

2. How do you study biodiversity (for example, what technological tools and methodologies do you use in your research)?

I try to accomplish my goals (conservation of biological diversity, especially through conservation of ecosystems) by applying my knowledge of birds and tropical biology in such tasks as the inventory and monitoring of bird populations (as in ECP's Rapid Biological Inventories), the training of field biologists in other countries, and the development of "tools for conservation" focused on birds.

Such tools include compact disks of the vocalizations of South American birds, produced in collaboration with the Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, and a field guide to the birds of Peru. Birds are ideal organisms for rapid sampling: they are diurnal, active, vocal, and their voices are relatively well documented. Up to eighty percent or more of the bird species in a given area can be detected by an expert field ornithologist in the period of one week.

More importantly, enough is known about the distribution and ecology of Neotropical birds that by focusing on a carefully selected group of localized, habitat-restricted species, one can produce an effective evaluation of the habitat type and quality. Well-developed methods of quantitative sampling also allow for relatively easy comparisons among sites. So, thorough field surveys for birds can yield very good information related to overall habitat quality, even in poorly known regions of the tropics.

But such expertise requires years of study to accumulate. We became active in disseminating this expertise through the development of aides to field identification for birds, such as bird song compact disks and field guides for regions that lack such basic references. We consider these CDs and field guides to be "tools for conservation": they are tools that allow other biologists to more quickly become experts at identifying bird species in the field, and to become better conservationists and land managers.

3. Where do you study biodiversity?

Most of my fieldwork takes place in the New World tropics, especially in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.

4. How might your research have implications for biological conservation?

The work that I do puts the "biological" into "biological conservation": in other words, my work, and that of my collaborators, provides the biological underpinnings for recommendations to land managers, governmental ministries, and other interested parties with regard to setting conservation priorities, or managing natural areas to preserve biodiversity.

5. How did you become interested in science? What made you want to be a scientist, and how did you get to The Field Museum?

I've been interested in animals in general, and birds in particular, for as long as I can remember: just born that way, apparently, although close encounters with brightly colored migrating warblers when I was in the third grade may have helped cement the bond. So, at an early age I began learning about birds, and I haven't stopped yet. I came to Chicago to attend graduate school at the University of Chicago, but I ended up spending more time at The Field Museum and never left.

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