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

2020

J. Hart, R. Feranec 2020, Using Maize δ15N values to assess soil fertility in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century AD Iroquoian agricultural fields, PLOS ONE 15, e0230952. 10.1371/journal.pone.0230952
R. Feranec, Brandon McDonald, Troi Perkins, Robert Dunn, Jennifer McDonald, Holly Cole, Roland Kays 2020, High variability within pet foods prevents the identification of native species in pet cats’ diets using isotopic evaluation, PeerJ 8, e8337. 10.7717/peerj.8337
R. Feranec, L. DeSantis, T. Tung, T. Dillehay 2020, Early specialized maritime and maize economies on the north coast of Peru, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009121117. 10.1073/pnas.2009121117

2019

R. Feranec, Kena Fox-Dobbs, John Harris, Thure Cerling, Jonathan Crites, Aisling Farrell, Gary Takeuchi, Larisa DeSantis 2019, Causes and Consequences of Pleistocene Megafaunal Extinctions as Revealed from Rancho La Brea Mammals, Current Biology 29, 2488-2495. 10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.059
J. Hart, R. Feranec 2019, Fish and maize: Bayesian mixing models of fourteenth- through seventeenth-century AD ancestral Wendat diets, Ontario, Canada, Scientific Reports 9, 16658. 10.1038/s41598-019-53076-7
R. Feranec, S. Fiedel, T. Marino, D. Driver 2019, A New AMS Radiocarbon Date for the Ivory Pond Mastodon, Eastern Paleontologist 3, 1-15.
J. Hart, R. Feranec 2019, The Dog That Wasn’t: An Historical Pig Burial on the Sixteenth-Century AD Klock Site, Fulton County, New York, Archaeology of Eastern North America 47, 1-6.
J. Hart, R. Feranec, T. Abel, J. Vavrasek 2019, Freshwater reservoir offsets on radiocarbon-dated dog bone from the headwaters of the St. Lawrence River, USA, PeerJ 7, e7174. 10.7717/peerj.7174
R. Feranec, S. Ledogar, J. Karsten, G. Madden, R. Schmidt, M. Sokohatskyi 2019, New AMS Dates for Verteba Cave and Stable Isotope Evidence of Human Diet in the Holocene Forest-Steppe, Ukraine, Radiocarbon 61, 141-158. 10.1017/RDC.2018.52
R. Feranec, H. McDonald, N. Miller 2019, First record of the extinct ground sloth, Megalonyx jeffersonii, (Xenarthra, Megalonychidae) from New York and contributions to its paleoecology, Quaternary International 530-531, 42-46. 10.1016/j.quaint.2018.11.021