Louisiana Master Naturalists of Greater New Orleans

Free. Participants must register in advance. To register, send an email request to: OrleansAudubon@aol.comwith “LSU Ornithology” as the subject line and include your full name in the body of the email message. If participating by phone, also include your phone number. Please register as soon as possible and at least two hours prior to the start of the meeting.

LSU Museum of Natural Science Ornithology Program

Presented by Dr. Nick Mason, Curator of Birds, LSU Museum of Natural Science

The LSU Museum of Natural Science ornithology program is world renowned for their collections and contributions to science. Dr. Nicholas Mason joined the museum in 2020 as the Curator of Birds. This will be your opportunity to meet Dr. Mason and hear a brief history of the ornithology programs at the LSU Museum of Natural Science as well as hear about some of the current research being conducted and what’s planned for the future.

Dr. Mason’s research centers on avian biodiversity. His lab group seeks to understand the ecological and evolutionary processes that underlie diversification in birds, both in terms of speciation and the evolution of phenotypic diversity at different spatial, temporal, and taxonomic scales. They also study how birds respond to anthropogenic activity to mitigate biodiversity loss in a rapidly changing planet. In doing so, their research incorporates an expanding toolbox, including population and comparative genomics, phylogenetic comparative methods, spatial analyses, and more.

While the research questions and topics addressed in Dr. Mason’s lab are broad and often interdisciplinary, these projects all incorporate natural history collections. He and the lab undertake local and international field work to study and document avian biodiversity via general and targeted scientific collecting, and are dedicated to the continued growth and stewardship of natural history collections.