Ever year, hundreds of Puget Sound Museum specimens are used to conduct research in various topics around the world. You can read about some of the research that's been done using our museum specimens below.
Research in the Museum
Publications featuring Puget Sound Museum Specimens
Short-tailed shearwater (Ardenna tenuirostris) plastic loads and particle dimensions exhibit spatiotemporal similarity in the Pacific Ocean
Wing Shape in Waterbirds: Morphometric Patterns Associated with Behavior, Habitat, Migration, and Phylogenetic Convergence
Plastic in Cassin's Auklets (Ptychoramphus aleuticus) from the 2014 stranding on the Northeast Pacific Coast
Hosts of avian brood parasites have evolved egg signatures with elevated information content
Additional Publications
- Egg Production in a Coastal Seabird, the Glaucous-Winged Gull (Larus glaucescens), Declines during the Last Century - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0022027
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Rapidly increasing methyl mercury in endangered ivory gull (Pagophila eburnea) feathers over a 130 year record - https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.0032
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Changing gull diet in a changing world: A 150-year stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) record from feathers collected in the Pacific Northwest of North America - https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12796
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Colonization pathways of the northeast Atlantic by northern fulmars: a test of James Fisher’s ‘out of Iceland’ hypothesis using museum collections - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-048X.2013.00262.x
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Genetic and phenotypic variation across a hybrid zone between ecologically divergent tree squirrels (Tamiasciurus) - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2011.05184.x
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Diversification and gene flow in nascent lineages of island and mainland North American tree squirrels (Tamiasciurus) - https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.12336
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Morphological response of songbirds to 100 years of landscape change in North America - https://doi.org/10.1890/09-2202.1
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Mainland size variation informs predictive models of exceptional insular body size change in rodents - https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.0239
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Generic Revision in the Holarctic Ground Squirrel Genus Spermophilus - https://doi.org/10.1644/07-MAMM-A-309.1
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Patterns of Evolutionary Divergence and Convergence in the Bushy-Tailed Woodrat (Neotoma cinerea) Across Western North America - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10914-013-9232-7
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When east meets west: population structure of a high-latitude resident species, the boreal chickadee (Poecile hudsonicus) - https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.2013.54
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Effects of climate change on the evolution of Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) lineages - https://doi.org/10.1642/AUK-13-242.1
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Long-term shifts in anthropogenic subsidies to gulls and implications for an imperiled fish - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2015.07.038
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Divergence with gene flow within the recent chipmunk radiation (Tamias) - https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.2014.27
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Size and dynamics of microplastic in gastrointestinal tracts of Northern Fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) and Sooty Shearwaters (Ardenna grisea) - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2016.12.064
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Independent evolutionary histories in allopatric populations of a threatened Caribbean land mammal - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12420
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Prevalence of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis in Xenopus Collected in Africa (1871–2000) and in California (2001–2010) - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0063791
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Temporal increase in organic mercury in an endangered pelagic seabird assessed by century-old museum specimens - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1013865108
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Population divergence and gene flow in an endangered and highly mobile seabird - https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.2012.7
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A Standardized Reference Data Set for Vertebrate Taxon Name Resolution - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0146894
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A synopsis of the Juncus hesperius group (Juncaceae, Juncotypus) and their hybrids in western North America - https://www.jstor.org/stable/24692565