Dr. Jeremy J. Kirchman

Curator of Birds and Mammals
jeremy.kirchman@nysed.gov
518-474-1441

I am broadly interested in the evolution and biogeography of birds, but most of my research focuses on populations found on islands. Islands have long been considered “natural laboratories of evolution”, and studying birds on islands teaches us much about speciation, extinction, and adaptation.  I have a special interest in one group of birds, the rails (Rallidae), which are great island colonists, found even on the most remote oceanic islands.  Many rail species have evolved to become totally flightless on islands that lack mammalian predators. Closer to home, I am studying several species of birds that breed in “islands” of coniferous (boreal) forest isolated above 3000 feet of elevation in New York’s mountain ranges. I want to know if these populations of Bicknell’s Thrush, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Spruce Grouse and other boreal forest specialists are genetically isolated and evolving independently of one another. These high-elevation populations may be imperiled as the climate continues to warm.

Publications

2015

E. Landing, S. Westrop 2015, Late Cambrian (middle Furongian) Shallow-Marine Dysoxic Mudstone with Calcrete and Brachiopod–Olenid–Lotagnostus Faunas in Avalonian Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Geological Magazine 152, 973-992. 10.1017/S001675681400079X
E. Landing, VanAller Hernick, F. Mannolini, D. Potvin-Leduc, R. Cloutier 2015, Middle Devonian (Givetian) Sharks from Cairo, New York (USA): Evidence of Early Cosmopolitanism, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 60, 183-200. 10.4202/app.2012.0101

2014

Williams, M., Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C., Landing, E., 2014. Is the Fossil Record of Complex Animal Behaviour a Stratigraphical Analogue for the Anthropocene?, in: Waters, N., Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Ellis, M., Snelling, A. (Eds.), A Stratigraphical Basis for the Anthropocene. Geological Society of London, London, pp. 143-148.
E. Landing, S. Westrop, J. Adrain, T. Karin 2014, Trilobite Biostratigraphy of the Stairsian Stage (upper Tremadocian) of the Ibexian Series, Lower Ordovician, Western United States, Memoirs of the Associaiton of Australasian Palaeontologists 45, 167–214.
E. Landing, G. Retallack 2014, Affinities and Architecture of Devonian Trunks of Prototaxites loganii, Mycologia , 1143-1158. 10.3852/13-390
E. Landing, G.J. Retallack 2014, Affinities and architecture of Devonian trunks of Prototaxites loganii, Mycologia 106, 1143-1158. 10.3852/13-390
E. Landing, G.J. Retallack 2014, Affinities and architecture of Devonian trunks Prototaxites loganii. Supplement., Mycology 106, . doi:10.3852/13-390

2013

G. Geyer, E. Landing, M. Brasier, S. Bowring 2013, Cambrian Evolutionary Radiation: Context, Correlation, and Chronostratigraphy—Overcoming Deficiencies of the First Appearance Datum (FAD) Concept, Earth-Science Reviews 123, 133-172. 10.1016/j.earscirev.2013.03.008
E. Landing, M. Williams, M. Mohibullah 2013, First Middle Ordovician Ostracods from Western Avalonia: Paleogeographical and Paleoenvironmental Significance, Journal of Paleontology 87, 269-276. 10.1666/12-065R1.1
E. Landing, S. Westrop, S. Bowring 2013, Reconstructing the Avalonia Palaeocontinent in the Cambrian: A 519 Ma Caliche in South Wales and Transcontinental Middle Terreneuvian Sandstones, Geology Magazine 150, 1022-1046. 10.1017/S0016756813000228