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Rasmussen and MSU Museum ornithology collections

Specimen data (such as species, locality, date) from all the MSU Museum's avian specimens from India and Nepal were used in a comprehensive database of specimens from many museums that Rasmussen compiled for South Asia. This database then formed the basis for analyses of distribution and migration that are presented as maps in Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide, as well as for analyses of biodiversity hotspots and regional avifaunal similarities for the region's birds published elsewhere.

Some MSU Museum specimens are key locality vouchers (meaning they provide verifiable proof of occurrence) for important regional records, such as the Museum's Sand Martin Riparia riparia specimen, Grasshopper Warbler Locustella naevia and two Tytler's Leaf-warblers Phylloscopus tytleri from India.

The specimen database that Rasmussen created (which includes MSU specimens) led to her involvement in a major UK-based Global Hotspots Consortium, which so far has resulted in her being one of several co-authors of a paper that appeared in Nature in August 2005 demonstrating that global avian diversity hotspots defined in different ways (number of total species vs. number of endemic species vs. number of threatened species) show very little congruence, a finding of considerable significance to conservation efforts.