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Ecuadorian ornithology: An assessment of current state of knowledge and suggestions for research priorities

Abstract:

The development of Ecuadorian ornithology has been relatively progressive since the publication of the first comprehensive work on that country's avifauna by F. M. Chapman in 1926. Even though current knowledge on Ecuadorian birds is superior to that of several other Neotropical countries, a detailed analysis of the information published until 2001 shows that there remains much work to be done. We analyzed 3084 references published between 1834 and 2001 in terms of years of publication, geographic regions, topics, and taxonomic groups. We found that the decades of 1980s and 1990s experienced a notable increase in the number of publications: 64% of the 3084 references appeared since 1980. Among geographic regions, the Galapagos Islands, with 37% of the total was the best documented. Conservation, biogeography, ecology, and systematics were the categories with the highest numbers of references. The number of studies dealing with the ecology of Galapagos birds is especially high. Passeriformes were the order with the highest number of publications (735), followed by Pelecaniformes and Apodiformes. Among families, Emberizidae (280) were the one with most references, followed by Trochilidae and Psittacidae. The high number of references for several orders and families is correlated with the number of publications on several Galapagos species (e.g., Pterodroma phaeopygia and Buteo galapagoensis), which are the best studied species of Ecuador. On the basis of this analysis, we outline priorities for research on the less well known taxa, geographic regions, and topics with the goal of focusing future research on the birds of Ecuador. © The Neotropical Ornithological Society.