german or english - depending on the folks

In June I will play some bioacoustic recordings and talk about birdsound collections, field expeditions and their contribution to conservation.

Looking forward to meeting some fantastic folks.
#wildlifesound #birdsound #bioacoustics #fieldmeeting

Venezuela’s new mining law could spell disaster for the Amazon, critics warn Venezuela is close to passing a law to update the country’s mining regulations and attract private investment in gold, silver, coltan and other minerals. But advocacy groups say the law may end up exa...

news.mongabay.com/2026/04/vene...

Massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration Budget proposal would also curb federal payments for scientific publishing.

Crippling defunding of US environmental programmes proposed. “It's an extinction-level event for science.”.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Forest Service Will Close Research Stations That Study Wildfire Risk

"The U.S. Forest Service is closing 57 of its 77 research facilities in 31 states under a reorganization plan announced this week, threatening science that looked at how wildfires, drought, pests and global warming are putting pressure on forests." www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/c...

Screenshot of the FishSounds home page with a pop up banner announcing that changes have been made.

🔉 Major FishSounds Website Update!!

The beta version of the new FishSounds.net is live now and will be finalized over the next month. Most of the updates won’t necessarily be noticeable on first glance, so a few of the more consequential changes are outlined below.

🧵1/7

Why Do Birds Put Snakeskin in Nests? It May Warn Away Predators Great Crested Flycatcher with a piece of shed snakeskin. Photo by Barbara Taylor / Macaulay Library. From the Spring 2025 issue of Living Bir ...

Some birds, including Great Crested Flycatchers and Northern House Wrens, have been known to drape snakeskins over their nests. Why? Evolving research suggests that, at least for cavity-nesting birds, the snakeskins act like a scarecrow against predators! Discover the details in this article:

"Acoustic differences persist in urban Great Tits over two decades of declining anthropogenic noise in Paris, France."
We recorded birds in Paris to study their response to changing levels of noise pollution: doi.org/10.1093/orni...
🧵1/8 @amornith.bsky.social #bioacoustics #ornithology

Our new paper describes song type sharing, matching, and collective themes in Adelaide's warbler dawn chorus communication networks. It's part of a special issue on animal communication networks. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... #animalcommunication #communicationnetworks #birdsong

Our paper on the female song in Galápagos yellow warblers is now published in Animal Behavior: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... To celebrate, here is the first ever video I recorded back in 2023 of the female BzHz singing!

Tiny recording backpacks reveal bats’ surprising hunting strategy By listening in on their nightly hunts, scientists discovered that small, fringe-lipped bats are unexpectedly able to efficiently take down prey nearly their own size.

"Tiny recording backpacks reveal bats’ surprising hunting strategy" - nice description and videos by Leonie Baier theconversation.com/tiny-recording-backpacks... #bioacoustics

Light brown and white bird with yellow throat and black mask and collar. Text reads: Horned Lark. Eremophila alpestris© Sarah Sharp/ Macaulay Library.

Photos of taxidermy birds side by side 2 sets. One Horned Lark from 1966 with white stomach and 1904 with gray stomach. One Red-headed Woodpecker from 1982 with a white stomach and from 1901 with a gray stomach. Text reads: Soot from coal turned many birds gray in the 1900s with arrows to gray birds. Better air quality by the 1960s brought their natural colors back with arrows to whiter birds. Specimen photos by Carl Fuldner and Shane DuBay.

Museum drawers quietly hold a record of pollution. Early 1900s bird specimens from the Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History were gray with soot—by the 1980s, their feathers significantly whiter. Full story: www.allaboutbirds.org/news/from-mu...

Why we should look beyond grades to spot potential in STEM “I have long believed that genius is evenly distributed across society,” this professor writes

I cannot agree more! “Why we should look beyond grades to spot potential in STEM”

www.science.org/content/arti...

Ancient DNA and spatial modeling reveal a pre-Inca trans-Andean parrot trade - Nature Communications Here, the authors combine ancient DNA, stable isotopes, and computational modeling to study colorful feathers from a pre-Incan tomb in Peru. They identify four species of parrots, which were likely ca...

🦜🏔️ How did vibrant Amazonian parrot feathers end up in a desert tomb on the Pacific coast of Peru 1,000 years ago? Our new paper on @natcomms.nature.com reveals they didn't just trade feathers, pre-Inca societies transported live macaws and parrots across the Andes!👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

NYAS Publications Myrmecophilous butterflies evolved diverse adaptations to communicate with ants, including acoustic ones. We analyzed the rhythmic properties of vibroacoustic signals in two ant and nine butterfly sp...

NEW PAPER! Do 🐛 use rhythm to trick 🐜? We analysed vibroacoustic signals from ants and butterflies with different myrmecophily levels. Ants and highly associated species share regular rhythms — suggesting convergent adaptation in tight mutualisms.

nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Vocal and display differences in an island form of a lekking species with an acrobatic dance routine Island environments drive distinctive morphological and life history traits known as the ‘island syndrome’. Previous studies pointed to lower sexual s…

Our paper looking at vocal & display differences of Escudo manakins is online.

Vocalizations show that island manakins are derived from a hybrid population of golden- x white-collared manakins.

Interestingly, island living doesn't indicate relaxed sexual selection.

Fun project & amazing team 🏝️

Two new bird species from the Amazon Basin described based on bioacoustics and morphological data | Blog Two new antbird species discovered in the Amazon Basin and described in the open-access journal Vertebrate Zoology.

🪶Two new antbird species have been discovered in the Amazon Basin through #bioacoustics and #morphological characteristics. The description has been published in the #OA #journal Vertebrate Zoology.

Read more about it on our blog 👇

and
Emerging Technologies in Bird Monitoring and Research: Artificial Intelligence, eDNA, Remote Sensing, and Other Approaches: www.keaipublishing.com/en/journals/...

The international ornithological journal Avian Research, which publishes Open Access for FREE, has calls for two special issues:
Avian Conservation in the Anthropocene: Challenges, Innovations, and Future Directions: lnkd.in/dcWNqPxu (deadline 31 December 2026)

and

Birds are vanishing from tropical forests. Is another ‘silent spring’ coming? As mysterious bird declines crop up in the Amazon and beyond, scientists suspect climate change may be to blame

Although we have known this for many years—e.g. @neobirdconserve financed early work by Vitek Jirinek—this should have been the top news headline last week. These declines in 'pristine' tropical forests are well-documented, poorly understood and continue apace. www.science.org/content/arti...

Register for Sonic Connexions - Listening at Scale: Edge and Cloud Computing for Large Bioacoustic Datasets with Dr. David Mann, Loggerhead Instruments

🗓️ Date: Thursday, March 5, 2026
🕒 Time: 4:00 PM (Brazil/Argentina time, UTC -3)

whoi-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/Td2bKuF...

Caterpillars hear through tiny body hairs, which could inspire improved microphones No ears, no problem. The tobacco hornworm caterpillar, a common garden pest, can actually detect airborne sound via microscopic hairs on its body, according to a team of faculty and graduate students at Binghamton University. The research could have implications for improving microphone technology.

No ears, no problem. The tobacco hornworm caterpillar can detect airborne sound via microscopic hairs on its body, according to a team at Binghamton University: phys.org/news/2026-01-caterpillar...

Research presented at the 6th Joint Meeting ASA and ASJ

ACOUSTICS TODAY

How do fish localize sound sources? Read "The Enigma of Sound Source Localization by Fishes" at https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2025.21.2.49

Tso-hsin Cheng: The Father of Chinese Ornithology This article is the fourth in a series about “The Pioneers”, the naturalists in 19th and early 20th century China who shone a light on China’s natural heritage.   ===== …

A short biography of “the father of Chinese ornithology”, Tso-hsin Cheng, one of the so-called “pioneers” who introduced China’s natural heritage to the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. wildbeijing.org/2026/02/16/t... #birds #china

“Well, I am female, so I'm curious why you thought I was male?” You're absolutely right to call this out - and thank you for doing it directly. Here's the plain, honest explanation (no hand- waving) : I made an incorrect assumption based on a mix of: • Role bias (the model defaulting to a male archetype for "science + policy + media" - a real, well-documented bias, unfortunately),

ChatGPT assumed I am male.

The reason demonstrates we have work to do. #AI #tech

Social movements are transformative agents for biodiversity conservation | PNAS Civil society has long been a catalyst for social change by reshaping structures, influencing values, and challenging power dynamics; however, its ...

Having advocated for decades for more support and recognition of the fundamental role of local and indigenous communities in conservation, this analysis using the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas) dataset is most welcome. Environmental organisations take note. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Conservation - Neotropical Birding and Conservation

NBC @neobirdconserve.bsky.social Conservation Fund supports projects to conserve threatened Neotropical birds by small grants of USD 1000–3000. Next deadline = 1 Feb. More information & application forms (English/Español/Português): neotropicalbirdingandconservation.org/conservation/ #ornithology

IMAGE SHOWS GRAPHIC OF CORNELL LAB OF ORNITHOLOGY PHYLOGENY EXPLORER TOOL.

MAJOR NEWS! We just launched an awesome new tool! The illustrated Birds of the World Phylogeny Explorer lets users trace any bird’s lineage, compare species relationships, and explore major evolutionary milestones with a click of a button. SHARE and EXPLORE! birdsoftheworld.org/bow/news/phy...

Bridging Brains and Bioacoustics Seminar announcement for Friday, January 30th at 12:30 ET From Audrey Looby, University of Victoria: "The Prevalence and Important of Soniferous Fishes" From Brooke Vetter, University of St. Thomas "Anthropogenic Noise and Fish Hearing: From Ecological Impacts to Invasive Species Management"

📣 New Bridging Brains and Bioacoustics Seminar next week!

Join us to learn about the ecology and neuroscience of soniferous fish from Audrey Looby and Brooke Vetter
🐟🐠🐡

@FishSounds.bsky.social

#bioacoustics
#neuroskyence
#prattle 💬

🗓️ January 30th, 12:30 ET
✅ Register here: www.braincoustics.com