Colombia is the country with the highest bird diversity in the world. Despite active research in ornithology, compelling morphological information of most bird species is still sparse. However, morphological information is the baseline to understand how species respond to environmental variation and how ecosystems respond to species loss. As part of a national initiative, the Instituto Alexander von Humboldt in collaboration with 12 Colombian institutions and seven biological collections, measured up to 15 morphological traits of 9,892 individuals corresponding to 606 species: 3,492 from individuals captured in field and 6,400 from museum specimens. Species measured are mainly distributed in high Andean forest, páramo, and wetland ecosystems. Seven ornithological collections in Colombia and 18 páramo complexes throughout Colombia were visited from 2013 to 2015. The morphological traits involved measurements from bill (total and exposed culmen, bill width and depth), wing (length, area, wingspan, and the distance between longest primary and longest secondary), tail (length and shape), tarsus (length), hallux (length and claw hallux), and mass. The number of measured specimens per species was variable, ranging from 1 to 321 individuals with a median of four individuals per species. Overall, this database gathered morphological information for >30% of Colombian bird diversity. No copyright, proprietary, or cost restrictions apply; the data should be cited appropriately when used.

Con el objetivo de evaluar la asociación entre las vocalizaciones y los comportamientos del cacique montano norteño (Cacicus chrysonotus leucoramphus), se tomaron registros acústicos y conductuales de la especie en cuatro localidades de los Andes de Nariño, en el sur de Colombia. Se registraron seis tipos de vocalizaciones asociadas a por lo menos una de las tres categorías conductuales identificadas (vigilancia, alerta y defensa territorial), y una vocalización registrada en un único evento de cortejo. Vocalizaciones con valores más altos de ancho de banda y modulación de frecuencia resultaron asociadas a defensa territorial, mientras que vocalizaciones con valores bajos de ancho de banda y poca modulación cumplieron funciones de vigilancia y alerta. Los resultados indican similitudes en el comportamiento vocal y social con respecto a estudios en otras especies como Cacicus cela y Cacicus haemorrhous. C. c. leucoramphus utiliza vocalizaciones específicas en un determinado contexto conductual, pudiendo algunas de ellas ser reutilizadas en varios comportamientos. Este estudio describe por primera vez el contexto social en el que se asocian las vocalizaciones y conductas en esta especie.

Cities do not only represent noisy systems, but also limit acoustic communication given the complex array of artificial structures through which signals can be trapped or obscured. In this study we performed a field experiment to evaluate the loss of energy of a standardized acoustic emission (generated with notes and a call of the Clay-colored Thrush – Turdus grayi). For this, we emitted the acoustic signal and recovered it at increasing radial distances from 26 fixed emission points (i.e., 10 m, 20 m, 40 m, 80 m, 120 m, 160 m) located across the city of Xalapa (Mexico). Our results show that the emitted signal was not recorded beyond 80 m from the emission point. The number and height of the assessed physical obstacles between the emitted signal and the receiving equipment showed to drive our main result, with built elements representing a major barrier than vegetation ones in terms of the recovered energy of the emitted signal. Interestingly, we found that, for both types of physical obstacles, a height of ~7 m was a common threshold influencing the recovered energy of the emitted signal.