Burton Lim

Bio

B.Sc., Zoology, University of Toronto, 1980-1984
M.Sc., Biology, York University, 1994-1996
Ph.D., Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 1999-2007
Certificate in Global Journalism, Munk School of Global Affairs, U of T, 2012-2013

Burton Lim is Assistant Curator of Mammalogy in the Department of Natural History at the ROM.

Born, raised and educated in Toronto, Burton has been employed at the ROM since completing his undergraduate degree and pursuing graduate studies. He has travelled to 28 countries (and counting) conducting fieldwork on mammals. His research interests focus on the evolution and biodiversity of mammals with a specialization on tropical bats.

His dissertation examined the molecular phylogenetics of New World sheath-tailed bats (Family Emballonuridae), their origin, divergence times, biogeography in Central and South America, and the evolution of morphological and behavioural characters. Burton continues this integrative biological approach on other groups of mammals.

He uses information gathered from faunal surveys in the Guiana Shield (primarily Guyana and Suriname) to investigate species diversity and relative abundance of small mammals (bats, rats, and opossums). The establishment of baseline data on distribution and community ecology enables the monitoring of changes in the environment to assess aspects of conservation and sustainable development.  Since 2011, Burton has been collaborating with Operation Wallacea on monitoring biodiversity at Iwokrama Forest and Surama Village in central Guyana, including bats, to track changes in the ecosystem.

Dr. Lim is also participating in the International Barcode of Life (iBOL) project to create a genetic reference system for species identification and discovery of mammals.  And he couldn’t pass up the once-in-a-life-time chance to skin a blue whale, the largest animal to ever live on earth, when 1 of 9 that had accidentally died during a year of exceptional ice formation in the Gulf of St. Lawrence washed ashore beside the boardwalk of Trout River on the west coast of Newfoundland.

Since 2017, Burton has been Chair of the Board of Directors of the North American Society for Bat Research (NASBR).  In addition, he has been Associate Editor of Acta Chiropterlogica – an international journal on bat research – since 2015.

ROM Links

• Ask ROM Anything: Burton Lim
• Covid-19 Giving Bats a Bad Rep
• Sequencing vampire bat DNA
• Paradise lost: proximity to the Soufrière Hills volcano has had a dramatic impact on the bats of Montserrat

Video Links

• Operation Wallacea – Ex Situ: Museum Research, Fieldwork and Collections
• TVO – The Agenda: Vilified Beasts: Reconsidering the Bat
• ROM Governors - Back to the Depths: The Great Whales Teaser Trailer
• Cryptic species of bats in Dominican Republic and across the Caribbean based on DNA barcoding
• Experts & Objects: From Bats to Balata
• Bats with Dr. Burton Lim!
• TVO – Digital Media: Endangered Ontario: Little brown bat

Other Links

• Guyana - What big ears you have!
• Munk School Fellowship in Global Journalism

Publications since 2018

Loureiro, L.O., M.D. Engstrom, and B.K. Lim. 2020. Does evolution of echolocation calls and morphology in Molossus result from convergence or stasis? PLoS ONE 15(9): e0238261. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238261

Garbino, G.S.T., B.K. Lim, and V.C. Tavares. 2020. Systematics of big-eyed bats, genus Chiroderma Peters, 1860 (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae). Zootaxa, 4846(1): 1-93. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4846.1.1

Lim, B.K., L.O. Loureiro, and G.S.T. Garbino. 2020. Cryptic diversity and range extension in the big-eyed bat genus Chiroderma (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae). ZooKeys, 918: 41-63. http://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.918.48786

Loureiro, L.O., M.D. Engstrom, and B.K. Lim. 2020. Comparative phylogeography of mainland and insular species of Neotropical molossid bats (Molossus). Ecology and Evolution. 10: 389–409. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5903

Loureiro, L.O., M.D. Engstrom, and B.K. Lim. 2020. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) provide unprecedented resolution of species boundaries, phylogenetic relationships, and genetic diversity in the mastiff bat (Molossus). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 143: https://doi.org/10.1016/J.YMPEV.2019.106690.

Catzeflis, F.M., B.K. Lim, and C.R. Da Silva. 2019. Litter size and seasonality in reproduction for Guianan rodents and opossums. Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment, 54: 31-39 https://doi.org/10.1080/01650521.2018.1528655

Lang, D., B.K. Lim, Y. Gao, and X. Wang. 2019. Adaptive evolutionary expansion of the ribonuclease 6 in Rodentia. Integrative Zoology, 14: 306-317. https://doi.org/10.1111/1749-4877.12382

Lew, D. and B.K. Lim. 2019. Mammals. Pp. 333-371, in Biodiversity of Pantepui: the pristine “lost world” of the Neotropical Guiana Highlands (V. Rull, T. Vegas-Vilarrúbia, O. Huber, and C. Señaris, eds.). Academic Press: Elsevier, London, UK.

Loureiro, L.O., M.D. Engstrom, B.K. Lim, C.L. Gonzalez, and J. Juste. 2019. Not all Molossus are created equal: genetic variation in the mastiff bat reveals diversity masked by conservative morphology. Acta Chiropterologica, 21: 51-64. Https://doi.org/10.3161/15081109ACC2019.21.1.004

Phillips, C.D., J.L. Dunnum, R.C. Dowler, L.C. Bradley, H.J. Garner, K.A. MacDonald, B.K. Lim, M.A. Revelez, M.L. Campbell, H.L. Lutz, N. Ordóñez Garza, J.A. Cook, R.D. Bradley, and the Systematic Collections Committee of the American Society of Mammalogists. 2019. Curatorial guidelines and standards of the American Society of Mammalogists for collections of genetic resources. Journal of Mammalogy, 100: 1690-1694. https://DOI.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyz111

Taylor, P.J., B.K. Lim, M. Pennay, P. Soisook, T. Kingston, L.O. Loureiro, L.M. Moras, and T. Kingston. 2019. Family Molossidae (Free-tailed bats). Pp. 620-672, in Handbook of the Mammals of the World, Volume 9, Bats (D.E. Wilson and R.A. Mittermeier, eds.). Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

Wang, X., B.K. Lim, N. Ting, J. Hu, Y. Liang, C. Roos, and L. Yu. 2019. Reconstructing the phylogeny of new world monkeys (platyrrhini): evidence from multiple non-coding loci. Current Zoology, 65: 579-598 https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoy072

Aguilera-Miller, E.P., B.K. Lim, R.W. Murphy, and S.T. Alvarez-Castañeda. 2018. Dominance by extremely high aggressive behaviors in relation to genetic microstructure in matrilines. Mammalian Biology, 89: 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2017.12.001

Gutierrez, E.A., G.M. Castiglione, J.M. Morrow, R.K. Schott, L.O. Loureiro, B.K. Lim, and B.S.W. Chang. 2018. Functional shifts in bat dim-light visual pigment are associated with differing echolocation abilities and reveal molecular adaptation to photic-limited environments. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 35: 2422-2434 https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msy140

Gutierrez, E.A., R.K. Schott, M.W. Preston, L.O. Loureiro, B.K. Lim, and B.S.W. Chang. 2018. The role of ecological factors in shaping bat cone opsin evolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 285: 20172835. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.2835

Lim, B.K., and T.E. Lee, Jr. 2018. Community ecology and phylogeography of bats in the Guianan savannas of northern South America. Diversity, 10(4): 129 https://doi.org/10.3390/d10040129

Lim, B.K., I. Roopsind, W. Prince, and J. Rob. 2018. Small mammals of the Upper Berbice River Region in Guyana.  Pp. 88-99, in Biodiversity Assessment Survey of the Upper Berbice Region, Guyana (Alonso, L.E., J. Persaud and A. Williams. eds). BAT Survey Report No. 3. WWF-Guianas, Guyana Office, Georgetown, Guyana. https://wwfeu.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/biodiversity_assessment_survey_of_the_upper_berbice_region_2018.pdf

Loureiro, L.O., B.K. Lim, and M.D. Engstrom. 2018. A new species of mastiff bat (Chiroptera, Molossidae, Molossus) from Guyana and Ecuador. Mammalian Biology, 90: 10-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2018.01.008

Ruedi, M., J.L. Eger, B.K. Lim, and G. Csorba. 2018. A new genus and species of vespertilionid bat from the Indomalayan Region. Journal of Mammalogy, 99: 209-222. https://DOI.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyx156