Leveraging Diverse Specimen Types to Integrate Behavior and Morphology

Biological specimens can hold a surprising wealth of information, and different specimen types hold different, but complementary, sets of data. This is true not only of physical specimens, such as study skins and skeletal preparations, but also of media "specimens," such as an audio recording of an animal's voice, a video of its display, or a photograph of its nest. When diverse specimen types are taken from the same species (species-level vouchering) and especially the same individual (individual-level vouchering), they can be leveraged to extract ever more complete insights into evolution, ecology, behavior, and functional morphology. In this chapter, we present two case studies that combine data obtained from analyses of both physical and media specimens. These case studies illustrate the diverse approaches undertaken using diverse specimen resources, approaches that allow us to address challenging questions and explore new areas of inquiry. Modern collecting techniques, such as behavioral vouchering using high-speed video and audio recordings, and advanced digital techniques, including several types of anatomical, acoustic, and optical analyses, were applied to extract information from specimens that previously would have been impossible to obtain. Results include surprising behavioral, functional, and evolutionary insights into two fascinating groups of birds: the manakins (Pipridae) and the birds-of-paradise (Paradisaeidae). Similar approaches can be employed to gain insights into other taxa. Importantly, these insights were only possible through an integrated approach that combined information gleaned from multiple specimen types, thereby highlighting the complementary nature of diverse specimen types.