He's unlocking the DNA secrets of birds

For Scott V. Edwards, the Victorian past and genetic future are just down the hall from each other -- literally.

Edwards is curator of the preserved bird collection at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, and his office is permeated by the pungent, slightly sweet smell of preservatives that waft from drawer upon drawer of stuffed birds, hundreds of thousands of them, from penguins to hummingbirds.

Just down the stairs and across a catwalk is Edwards' DNA lab.

At a time when many universities are selling or giving away century-old collections of birds and biology, Edwards, 41, says bird mausoleums such as his still hold the answers to important -- and current -- scientific questions.

Holding up a taxidermied Carolina parakeet, a colorful bird that went extinct in 1918, or gingerly examining the long body of a black-footed albatross, he becomes reverent. "Basically, museum collections are a powerful record of environmental history," he said, adding that many of the specimens are from areas now transformed into strip malls.

"We get a more refined picture of the history of life and vertebrates. We learn a lot about where humans came from," said Edwards, who arrived at Harvard a year ago from the University of Washington. "It's kind of like the 19th century."

Using the DNA from his collection, Edwards and his students are trying to figure out when, and how, reptiles and birds diverged, comparing the genomes of different species to understand their origins, and using genetic data from collected birds to help current species survive.

Pulling out a drawer lined with tiny preserved orioles from around the world, Edwards, a passionate bird-watcher from his youth, says the rows of seemingly identical specimens offer the pulse of a single species and the Earth itself. Are bird species spreading to new ranges? Are they disappearing from places where they were once plentiful? Are birds getting larger or smaller? Are they molting feathers at different times?

When scientists discovered the dangers of DDT, they used museum collections of bird eggs to determine that egg shells were thinner. The latest genetic techniques promise to elucidate even more complicated questions about evolution and the environment.

Edwards is intrigued that alligators and turtles have vastly more genetic material than chickens or humans. He's found that a large part of that material is junk DNA -- genetic spam that carries no meaning -- and is trying to understand how and why birds like the chicken ended up with such streamlined genomes.

And by analyzing the genes of preserved albatrosses killed by fishermen in Alaska, Edwards and a student recently found that the birds came from Hawaii, and alerted conservation officials to monitor their local populations more closely.

"The Hawaiian population [of albatrosses] is getting hit the hardest by fishermen," he said. "Hopefully, we won't wait around to see what happens."

It was a yellow-shafted flicker spied through binoculars that changed the way Edwards, then 8, thought about the world.

"It's a case where you see something in a field guide, but then you see it in real life, when you couldn't imagine" actually seeing it for yourself, he said.

Seeing the yellow-tailed woodpecker for himself opened his eyes to the world around him, and planted the seed of his current belief -- that every bird, from the backyard blue jay to a colorful bird of paradise -- has a story to tell about the environment, evolution, and subtle changes in the ecosystem.

During a leave from Harvard as an undergraduate, he worked at the Smithsonian Institution's collection and conducted field work in Hawaii. After returning to Harvard, he said, "I wanted something at least with the illusion of more precision" than trying to count birds as they flew by, and he discovered the field of molecular evolution.

Now, his house is surrounded by birdfeeders, and he and his wife, Elizabeth, a wildlife biologist, are hoping that their two young daughters -- who are learning to use binoculars -- will catch the birding bug.

"You can pretty much be doing it anywhere," he said. "It's a way to connect to the environment. . . . You can be watching the Super Bowl, and you see a peregrine falcon" soaring above the stadium -- something no one else in the world necessarily notices.

Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com.