Alexa and Ben Freeman

The tropics have one major difference from the temperate zone: they are consistently warm. That ultimately explains why many temperate-zone birds (and sometimes humans) migrate to tropical regions to escape winter. But whether you visit a tropical forest in January, March, July, or November, you will experience roughly the same temperature. It is this lack of seasonality that has allowed biodiversity to reach its zenith in tropical forests. For the appreciator of biodiversity, tropical forests are a truly awe-inspiring aesthetic experience; hundreds and hundreds of bird species co-exist in dense forests, each specialized to its particular way of life.

Alexa Class Freeman's interest in tropical biology began during an extended family trip to Central America when she was eight years old. This led to her PhD studies of how birds living on the equator schedule their lives in an unseasonal environment. As a child, Ben Freeman loved to draw exotic birds from field guides. As an adult, he's worked as a guide and conducted research on tropical mountains. Alexa and Ben live in Ithaca, New York, where Alexa works as an art editor for the Handbook of Bird Biology at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Ben is a graduate student at Cornell University. 

Their academic research seeks to answer the following questions: 1) Why are there so many species of birds on tropical mountains? 2) Why do most bird species on tropical mountains specialize on tiny elevational zones on massive mountains? (they have wings after all!), and 3) How are tropical montane birds responding to global warming? Although enthralled with tropical biodiversity, Alexa and Ben have an equal appreciation for the beautiful landscapes and birds close to home.