Marco Pavia

Biography

My research interests include the systematic and distribution of recent birds, particularly from Europe and Africa, the Neogene birds’ taxonomy and biogeography, and the management and use of scientific collections (paleontological and zoological).

Ornithology
Since the beginning of my scientific carrier, I am involved in studies on recent birds, mainly focused on distribution at National and Regional levels. In the last years, I have been involved in studies on systematic, taxonomy, and distribution of African end European birds. These analyses are always based on museum specimens and, together with the analysis of the morphological traits, also involve the use of an integrated approach combining genetic, morphological and paleontological data.
More in detail, I have strong scientific relationships with G. Boano (Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Carmagnola, Italy), with who we studied the birds from the Southern Burkina Faso and started a project in Gabon from morphological point of view with a specimen-based approach. Since the 2015 I started to collaborate with G. Voelker (Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas) and M. Cucco (University of Piemonte Orientale, Alessandria, Italy) to a project on the genetic and morphological characterization of Southern and Insular Italian birds to evaluate their taxonomic status and the role of the Pleistocene refugia in their distribution and relationships with the other Palaearctic populations or taxonomic units. Other collaborations, even if less habitual, have been established with M. Rakovic (Natural History Museum of Belgrade, Serbia), E. Koblik (Zoological Museum, Moscow, Russia), and I. Fadeev (Darwin State Museum, Moscow, Russia).
From the 2000, I’m an official bird ringer, with A (top) level license, and I participated and coordinates several ringing campaigns in Italy. I also cover executive roles in National and Regional Ornithological Associations engaged in the governance of the national web portal dedicated to the collection of ornithological observation (www.ornitho.it), in the drafting of the new Italian bird Atlases, and the organization of the Italian Ornithological Congresses.

Bird Paleontology
Since the Master Thesis, and after for the PhD, my researches concern much on fossil birds from Europe and Africa. The analyses are focused mainly on Neogene and Pleistocene birds from Mediterranean area, particularly on island birds. More recently, I have also been involved in the study of Pliocene and Pleistocene birds from South Africa, particularly from Langebaanweg (claimed as one of the most important pre-Pleistocene fossil bird locality) and various localities from the Cradle of Humankind (Kromdraai, Bolt’s Farm, and Cooper’s Cave) thanks to the collaboration with J. Braga (University of Toulouse, France), C. Steininger (Witswaterstrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa), D. Gommery (Sorbonne University, France), B. Cohen (Museum of Bloemfontain, South Africa), and R. Govender (Iziko Museum, Cape Town, South Africa). Other collaborations, even if less habitual, have been established with G. Mayr (Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg Frankfurt, Germany), U. Goehlich (Natural History Museum Wien, Austria), and H. Meijer (University of Bergen, Norway).
The interest on fossil birds is mostly related to systematic and taxonomy of the extinct forms, the early appearance of the recent taxa and the relevance of the fossil records from palecological and paleobiogeographical points of views. My expertise on bird osteology has been recently included in a chapter of an Ornithology text-book.

Collection Management
A part of all the curatorial activities I’m involving daily, including preparation of specimens, data-entry and space management, I’m also involved in the promotion of the use of scientific collections, with main focus on ornithological research museum-based, particularly in Italy where this particular use is very weak. In 2017 and 2019 I co-organized a first technical workshop about taxidermy techniques used in scientific ornithology, which was really appreciated by the attendances.

I'm employed at the University of Torino as Collection Manager of the Geo-Paleontological collections, which also include two collections of recent skeletons (ornithological and herpethological). I extensively used the collections for research, teaching, and student formation. I organized and participated to ornithological and paleontological field campaigns in 4 continents. I also follow all the curatorial procedures: creation and implementation of relational Databases for the collections using MS Access, include all the scattered information in the proper Databases, data entering of not digitalized specimens (including the newly collected ones); management of loans and visitors, space and storage arrangement, organization and participation of specimens tracking in the scientific outputs.
Experienced in different ornithological and paleontologicalpreparations.