Pamela Rasmussen is the daughter of Helen Rasmussen, a
Seventh-day Adventist, whose husband, Chester Murray Rasmussen, a doctor, had left the family when Pamela and her sisters were young. Her interest in birds started when her mother bought her the junior edition of Oliver Austin's
Birds of the World, and Pamela subsequently always chose to receive bird books as presents. She took her M.S. in 1983 at
Walla Walla University, an Adventist-affiliated university in southeast
Washington, and her Ph.D. at the
University of Kansas in 1990. At Kansas, she studied
blue-eyed shags, and was introduced to
evolutionary theory, which had not been taught at her alma mater. Rasmussen is a visiting assistant professor of
zoology, and assistant museum curator of
mammalogy and ornithology, at
Michigan State University (MSU), having formerly been a research associate for the eminent American ornithologist
S. Dillon Ripley at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the
American Ornithological Society (AOS) North American Classification Committee (NACC), a scientific associate with the bird group of the British
Natural History Museum zoology section at
Tring, and an associate editor of
The Ibis, the scientific journal of the
British Ornithologists' Union. In 2020 she replaced the ornithologist
Frank Gill as an editor of the
IOC World Bird List, an online list maintained on behalf of the
International Ornithologists' Union. Rasmussen is married to Michael D. Gottfried, who is Curator of Paleontology, Associate Professor of Geology, and Director of the Center for Integrative Studies in General Science at MSU.
Research highlights South American seabirds Rasmussen's early work was largely focused on studies of the systematics, ecology and behaviour of
Patagonian
seabirds, notably cormorants. She studied plumage variations in juvenile
blue-eyed,
king and
red-legged cormorants, and used plumage and behavioural patterns to establish relationships between king and blue-eyed shags. She also reviewed the fishing activity of
olivaceous cormorants.
Asian birds Rasmussen described four new Asian bird species from her study of museum specimens. The
Nicobar scops owl Otus alius, the
Sangihe scops owl Otus collari, and the
cinnabar hawk owl Ninox ios, a
Sulawesi endemic, all in 1998, and the
Taiwan bush-warbler Bradypterus alishanensis in 2000. She rediscovered the
forest owlet Athene blewitti, which had not been seen since 1884, in western India, previous searches by S. Dillon Ripley,
Salim Ali and others having failed because they relied on fake documentation from
Richard Meinertzhagen. With her colleagues, she clarified the taxonomy of
Indonesian
white-eyes, establishing the specific status of the
Sangihe white-eye Zosterops nehrkorni and the
Seram white-eye Z. stalkeri and confirmed the identity of the
Serendib scops owl which had originally been discovered in
Sri Lanka by local
ornithologist Deepal Warakagoda. The imperial pheasant is a rare bird found in the forests of Vietnam and Laos. Rasmussen and her co-workers used morphology, hybridisation experiments, and
DNA analysis to show that this pheasant, previously thought critically endangered, is actually a naturally occurring hybrid between the
Vietnamese pheasant Lophura hatinhensis and the subspecies
annamensis of the
silver pheasant L. nycthemera. A 2008 paper saw a return to white-eye taxonomy with the formal description of the
Togian white-eye Zosterops somadikartai, an endemic species of the
Togian Islands of
Indonesia, which, unlike most of its relatives, lacks the white ring around the eye which give this group of birds its name. Pamela Rasmussen's interest in Asian birds led to her involvement in more specifically conservation-directed projects. Two
Gyps vultures, the Indian white-rumped vulture,
Gyps bengalensis, and the "long-billed vulture" suffered a 99 percent population decrease in South Asia due to poisoning by
diclofenac, a
veterinary drug that causes kidney failure in birds that have eaten the carcasses of treated cattle. Rasmussen showed that there are two distinct species of long-billed vulture: the
Indian vulture G. indicus and
slender-billed vulture G. tenuirostris. This is important to conservation, since a captive-breeding program has been established to assist the recovery of at-risk vulture species.
Biodiversity '' In 2005, Rasmussen was part of a large multi-institutional collaboration investigating
biodiversity hotspots, which have a prominent role in conservation. The study assessed locations quantitatively for three criteria of bird diversity – species richness, the level of threat, and the number of
endemic species. The results demonstrated that hotspots did not show the same geographical distribution for each factor. Only 2.5% of hotspot areas are common to all three aspects of diversity, with over 80% of hotspots registering on only one criterion. Each criterion explained less than 24% of the variation in the other factors, suggesting that even within a single taxonomic class, different mechanisms are responsible for the origin and maintenance of various aspects of diversity. Consequently, the different types of hotspots also vary greatly in their utility as conservation tools. Rasmussen's recent work has concentrated on further large-scale collaborations with the same group of institutions studying global patterns in biodiversity. A survey of species richness and geographical range size did not show the decrease in range size from temperate regions to the tropics that had been previously assumed; although that pattern was largely true in the northern hemisphere, it did not appear to apply in the southern hemisphere. Research evaluating the relationship between extinction and human impact showed that, after controlling for species richness, the best predictors of the global pattern of extinction risk are measures of human impact, with
ecological factors being of secondary importance. An examination of the distribution of rare and threatened
vertebrate species, showed differing patterns for bird, mammal and amphibian species, which has consequences for hotspot-based conservation strategies. Other studies by Rasmussen and her international colleagues looked at the importance of energy availability, and a 2007 paper showed that global patterns of spatial turnover are driven principally by widespread species rather than restricted ones. This complements other work, and helps to establish a unified model of how terrestrial biodiversity varies both within and between the Earth's major land masses.
Paleo ornithology A fossil site at a borrow pit in near
Cheswold, Delaware created during highway construction unearthed 11 specimens of fragmentary and unassociated avian fossils, which were identified by Rasmussen as including a small
loon, a small
gull-like species and five specimens of a
gannet-like seabird, probably
Morus loxostylus, a common species in the
Miocene. All of these forms were already known from a site in
Chesapeake Bay,
Maryland. The finds suggests that the Delaware site was the near-shore area of a large bay at the time of deposition. Rasmussen was also involved in a review of
fossil birds from Miocene and
Pliocene deposits in
North Carolina. Finds included an early Miocene
loon Colymboides minutus, various ducks, a crested tern closely resembling the modern
royal tern Sterna maxima, and a member of the
crow genus, one of the few fossil
passerine birds from that period. The review found that fossil birds from this period generally closely resemble a modern species or genus, and those that do not can usually be placed in a modern family with a fair degree of confidence.
Birds of South Asia In 1992, Rasmussen took the position of assistant to
S. Dillon Ripley, the former secretary of the Smithsonian, who was planning to produce a definitive guide to the birds of South Asia. When he became ill shortly after beginning the project, Rasmussen took over the project, and with artist
John C. Anderton, produced
Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide, a two-volume bird guide for the
Indian subcontinent which was the first field guide for the area to include
sonograms. Volume 1 contains the field guide with over 3400 illustrations in 180 plates, and more than 1450 colour maps. Volume 2 (
Attributes and Status) gives specimen measurements, data about identification, status, distribution and habits. Vocalizations are described from recordings, and there are over 1000 sonograms. 1508 species that have occurred in India,
Bangladesh,
Pakistan,
Nepal,
Bhutan,
Maldives, the
Chagos archipelago and
Afghanistan are covered, including 85
hypothetical and 67 'possible' species, which are given only short accounts. Notable aspects of
Birds of South Asia are its distribution evidence-base – the book's authors based their distributional information almost completely on
museum specimens – and its taxonomic approach, involving a large number of species-level splits. Its geographical range was also greater than that of older works, notably in the inclusion of Afghanistan. Although reviews in the birding and ornithological press have often been favourable, there have been criticisms. Peter Kennerley, author and Asian bird expert, considered that some of the illustrations are small and garish or technically inaccurate. He also believes that the over-reliance on sometimes very old museum specimens and dismissal of the wealth of observational data filed by amateur travelling birders is a mistake, and states that many of the taxonomic decisions appear to be random choices, unsupported by published research. Apart from the Meinertzhagen fraud, which is discussed in the next section, and the death of S. Dillon Ripley, other problems in the production of
Birds of South Asia included the loss of the main map database during a trip to Burma, and poorly prepared specimen skins. There were also difficulties reconciling sources, delays in producing illustrations and maps, and in obtaining reliable data for "difficult" areas like
Assam,
Arunachal Pradesh, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The
Andaman and
Nicobar Islands also presented serious challenges with regard to the status and taxonomy of their avifaunas.
Meinertzhagen fraud (formerly large blue flycatcher), a species with false Meinertzhagen records When researching for
Birds of South Asia, Rasmussen examined tens of thousands of bird specimens, since the late S. Dillon Ripley had strongly favoured the use of museum specimens to determine which birds to include. With Robert Prys-Jones of the
Natural History Museum, she showed that the decades-old Meinertzhagen fraud was far more extensive than first thought. Many of the 20,000 bird specimens in his collection had been relabelled with regard to where they were collected, and sometimes also remounted. The false documentation delayed the rediscovery of the forest owlet, since previous searches had relied on Meinertzagen's faked records. Rasmussen's successful expedition ignored these and looked in the areas identified by the remaining genuine specimens. Meinertzhagen had been banned from the Natural History Museum's Bird Room for 18 months for unauthorised removal of specimens, and suspicions that he was stealing specimens and library material were documented by staff for over 30 years, twice reaching the verge of prosecution. (then treated as a subspecies of
C. banyumas). ==Exhibitions==