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Published: January 6, 2015

Evolutionary atlas of Malawian birds

Stephanie Ware, Manager, Morphology Labs, SEM

Project Mentor: Dr. John Bates (Associate Curator, Birds, Integrative Research Center)

Project Description: The Bird Division of the Field Museum has conducted a set of modern inventories of birds from sites across the country of Malawi in south-central Africa. Data from these collections is being used in a wide variety of evolutionary research projects. We are putting together data for an Evolutionary Atlas of Malawian birds in which we intend to summarize much of the basic natural history data that can not be published elsewhere while putting those data into the context of the new phylogenetic and phylogeographic data that have been gathered.

Research methods and techniques: This internship will involve working with an Associate Curator (John Bates) and Divisional staff on the computer, in the collections, and with the literature to help organize a large amount of natural history data.

Stephanie Ware
Manager, Morphology Labs

Stephanie started volunteering at the Field Museum in 1998, working with Curator John Bates in the Bird Division. In 1999, John Bates hired her as a research assistant. After that project finished in 2007, she went to work for Carl Dick in the Division of Insects helping him to complete his work on the museum's Bat Fly collection. She spent a great deal of time generating images for the Bat Fly portion of theDiptera Taxonomy Database. When Carl left for University of Kentucky in 2009, she continued her imaging work in the Insect Division. In the intervening years, she has imaged hundreds specimens, mostly types, from the rove beetle (Staphylinidae), ant and myriapoda collections.

Stephanie began working with the Chicago Peregrine Program in 2006.  Initially, she monitored the Metropolitan Correctional Center nest in downtown Chicago.  Over time, her duties have expanded to include other nests in the metro region, emphasizing the identification of nesting adults.  In March of 2007, Stephanie created a group called Midwest Peregrine Falcons on the photo sharing website Flickr with the goal of providing a place for photographers across the country to submit their photographs of peregrine sightings in the Midwestern United States. She also has many of her own peregrine photos on Flickr as well.

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