Per Alström is professor and researcher at the Department of Ecology and Genetics at Uppsala University and at the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
His main research in ornithology is focused on the Systematics of Passerines through DNA analysis, vocalizations plus the examination of morphology that, in combination with ecological, distribution and behavioral data, allows to obtain an integrated taxonomy.
In addition, he is the discoverer of several species new to science in Asia (Zoothera salimalii or Locustella chengi among the recent ones) and has rediscovered where the enigmatic Blackthroat (Calliope obscura) breeds in the Qinlin Mountains, in central China. Moreover, he’s the co-author of one of the most important recent books on systematics, “The Largest Avian Radiation”.
In his lecture he suggests to shake the taxonomic classification of the more than 6200 species of passerine birds that are known in the world. Alström will discover us, the close relationship between species that until now we believed very far from each other due to their appearance and distribution and at the same time he will reveal to us that some species that apparently seem very close, perhaps they are more due to evolutionary convergence than to come from the same recent ancestor….
