David William Steadman is a paleontologist and ornithologist, and serves as the curator of ornithology at the

Florida Museum of Natural History The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) is Florida's official state-sponsored and chartered natural-history museum. Its main facilities are located at 3215 Hull Road on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville. The main pub ...

at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

. His research has concentrated on the

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

biogeography Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, ...

conservation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...

, and

extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

of tropical birds, particularly in the islands of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. He has also authored over 180 scientific publications. He has conducted a number of digs at prehistoric sites and uncovered widescale extinctions caused by humans in the early stages of colonisation. He has conducted several expeditions to the

Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands (Spanish: , , ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands. They are distributed on each side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, and are part of the Republic of Ecuador ...

, and has described a number of extinct species of birds and more recently was involved in discovering that the

Solomon Islands frogmouth The Solomons frogmouth (''Rigidipenna inexpectata''), also known as the Cinnamon frogmouth or Solomon Islands frogmouth, is a bird in the frogmouth family. It was first described in 1901, but not recognized as a distinct species until 2007.Cleere ...

is a species (instead of a subspecies of the

marbled frogmouth The marbled frogmouth (''Podargus ocellatus'') is a bird in the family Podargidae. The species was first described by Jean René Constant Quoy and Joseph Paul Gaimard in 1830. It is found in the Aru Islands, New Guinea and Queensland. Its nat ...

, as formerly believed). He worked extensively on Easter Island, carrying out the first systematic excavations of the island in order to identify the plants and animals that once lived there.University of Florida News (2007)
UF scientists discover new genus of frogmouth bird in Solomon Islands
Accessed 1 March 2008

Education

* Bachelor's degree in Biology from Edinboro State College in 1973. * Master's degree in Zoology from the University of Florida in 1975. * Doctorate in Geosciences from the University of Arizona in 1982.

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American ornithologists University of Florida College of Agricultural and Life Sciences alumni University of Florida faculty {{US-ornithologist-stub