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SCOTT V. EDWARDS: Thanks, everyone.

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It's great to be here.

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And today we're going
to hear a little bit

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about how we can traverse the
world in all its biodiversity

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through some of the amazing institutions
and museums we have right here

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at Harvard.

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Here's a picture of me
teaching a few undergraduates

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in my ornithology class in Palo
Verde National Park, Costa Rica.

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And one of the things I
want to impress upon you

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is that I think the
most important thing you

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can do after taking classes wherever
you go is to get involved with research.

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Many of the classes that we have here
in Biology, Environmental Sciences,

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we won't be just talking
about the problems out there.

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We'll be visiting them and
looking at them directly.

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And this is one of the great
aspects of teaching here

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at Harvard is the ability to
really give students a first row

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seat to all the really
incredible changes

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that are happening to
our planet right now.

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Now in addition to all the great
students and all the great faculty

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we have here at Harvard,
the bottom line is

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that Harvard also has a lot of stuff.

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We have millions of specimens
in various kinds of museums.

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We've got art museums, natural history
museums, ancient Egyptian museums.

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All of these are freely
accessible to Harvard students.

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And for teachers like me,
they allow us to unveil

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the amazing world of biodiversity by
really traversing the planet right

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in the confines of Harvard campus.

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This is the venerable Museum
of Comparative Zoology,

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which is the largest university-based
natural history museum in the world.

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You can see here we're able to
look at the subtle variations that

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occur in species across the landscape.

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We can look at living species such
as the orioles you see on the top row

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or we can look at extinct species,
such as the Carolina parakeets which

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you see on the bottom left.

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We also have incredible
resources in genomic resources.

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These are tissue or blood
samples from species

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sampled all over the
planet that allow us

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to probe the genomes of
these extraordinary species.

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Through that, we can understand how
these species have changed through time

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and how they're responding to
pressing issues like climate change.

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I view specimens not simply
as a particular bird,

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or a particular insect,
or a particular plant

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but really as snapshots of biodiversity
of a particular place in time

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during the history of our planet.

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So for example, on these extinct
Hawaiian honeycreepers-- well,

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some are extinct.

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Others are still with us--

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we can find, for example, pollen from
flowers that they have pollinated.

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We can find chemical
residues of chemicals

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that have wafted into the
Hawaiian islands over time.

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We can use high energy physics to look
at the nanostructures of their feathers

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to understand the colors
that they produce.

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And so a specimen is not
simply a bird or an insect.

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It's really a window into an
historical place and time.

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Here are just a few examples
of some of the field trips

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that we take as part of our classes.

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We've got field trips
here from ornithology,

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from herpetology, which is the
study of reptiles and amphibians.

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We've also got botany in
the lower left and we have

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paleontology, the study of fossils.

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These field trips are an integral
part of the classes that we teach

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and they allow students
to visit the sites where

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many of the great discoveries are made.

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We also strive to give
students the skills

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to record biodiversity in ways
that will allow researchers

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from around the world to
harvest that information.

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And so here you see a student taking
sound recordings of a bird singing.

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It's actually a really
challenging thing to do.

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As you take your recording, you
become attuned to your environment

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and you realize how many planes
are passing over, how many folks

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are talking right next to you.

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It's really a challenge to get a
really pristine recording of a species.

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We use scopes and we catch birds with
mist nets to look at their details

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very closely.

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So here's a picture
taken by a student on one

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of my trips of the
white-collared manakin, which

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is a species of neotropical
bird which is found in Panama.

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And I thought I'd show
you a quick clip of what

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this bird does when it's
excited getting together

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with other members of its own sex.

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So you can see it's a so-called lekking
species, meaning the males actually

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display communally.

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Now you can see that this
student has actually lost

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sight of this really interesting bird.

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She's trying to find it.

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And this really illustrates some of the
challenges of studying animal behavior.

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It's not easy.

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It's not a laboratory
controlled environment.

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But you can see that eventually
she does capture it again.

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And we were really able to witness
some remarkable behaviors this way.

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We also do a lot of cool stuff at night.

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For those of you who are night owls,
ornithology is the place for you.

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This is a common paraque, a very
interesting nocturnal species

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that feeds on insects.

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And we also find lots of other
creepy crawly things like spiders.

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Here's a bunch of students just grooving
out on a spider on the road at night.

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Now we also get a little
bit crazy on these trips.

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And here's a video that my students
put together just having fun.

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[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

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- As a biologist, I know how important
it is to bring students into the field,

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to make them see the diversity of birds,
to come to places like Costa Rica,

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and, most importantly,
talk birdie to me.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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- (SINGING TOGETHER) Get chirpy on him.

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I'm that [INAUDIBLE] that
you get on international.

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Fold out seat in my thrifty, riding
bumpy roads cause I know all the birds.

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[END PLAYBACK]

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[LAUGHTER]

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[APPLAUSE]

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SCOTT V. EDWARDS: They need a
little work on their harmony

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but you can get the sense.

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So I just wanted to end with two little
vignettes of research in my laboratory.

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And again, both of these projects
were actually done by undergraduates.

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And one of the best things
about being a Harvard professor

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is to welcome students into the lab.

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And that's honestly the best way you can
get value for your college education.

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So the black-footed albatross,
this is my favorite bird

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so you don't have to ask me
what my favorite bird is.

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This is it.

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It's a really interesting seabird,
a member of the albatross family,

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which in this case breeds
in Hawaii and in Japan.

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You can see that its population
numbers are not particularly high.

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There's less than 100,000 of
them on the entire planet.

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And their movements-- these albatrosses
are famous for traversing the globe

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seemingly effortlessly--

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raise an issue about how
we can best conserve them.

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And so for example, the
black-footed albatross

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is found both on islands of the
so-called leeward Hawaiian islands,

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which are the many
small islands and coral

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atolls to the northwest of the
main eight Hawaiian islands.

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So when I go to Hawaii, I
don't go to Waikiki or Kauai.

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Even I go to Midway
and Tern Island, which

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are these remarkable atolls to
the northwest that you see there.

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They breed there and they also
breed islands in Southern Japan.

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And so it's an incredibly
widespread species.

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And in fact, individuals will
fly all the way from Hawaii

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to the west coast of North America
just for a meal for their chick.

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And so we need to know
how genetically different

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are populations in Hawaii and Japan and
should we manage them as a single unit

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or as separate units.

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Well, an undergraduate
took this on and applied

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high throughput genetic techniques.

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And she found that, as you
can see from this plot,

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we can easily separate the Hawaiian
and Japanese populations on the left

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and right side of the graph.

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So this tells us that, in
fact, these populations

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are genetically
differentiated and that we

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might want to consider managing them
separately according to their own life

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histories and ecologies.

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And then finally, I just wanted to
mention a really interesting project

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where we're using an
animal model to understand

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the spread of zoonotic
diseases, very much a simulation

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as if we were studying COVID in humans.

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So house finches are a very common
species here in Massachusetts.

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And about 30 years ago, they were
invaded by a bacterial pathogen

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called a mycoplasma.

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And you can see the spread of
that pathogen up on the map there.

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And we've essentially been taking museum
specimens going back in time to study

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the bird before the pathogen spread--
you can see there on the blue

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on the map--

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as it was spreading in the
east, and then finally as it

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continued to spread through
the West Coast using.

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Museum specimens, we can essentially go
back in time and look at this process

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historically.

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And this is, I think, one of the great
values of these amazing collections.

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So I just want to suggest that
you come here, you'll go far,

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and that biodiversity needs
the best and brightest minds.

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And we've got some great resources
on campus to do just that.

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So thank you very much.

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[APPLAUSE]

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