Anton Baotic

Ecological Exposure History Shapes Giraffe Vigilance Responses to Anthropogenic Noise: A Multisite Playback Experiment Understanding how animals respond to anthropogenic disturbance is essential for predicting the impacts of human activity on wildlife behavior and persistence. As noise increasingly alters sensory lan...

🦒🔊 Anthropogenic noise alters giraffe behaviour.
Our playback experiments show increased vigilance to vehicle and drone sounds (and human voices)- even without visual cues.
Responses were strongest in quieter landscapes, highlighting the role of exposure history.
OA paper: dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

Giraffes use Birds as an Alarm System Acoustic researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) have shown through field studies in South Africa that giraffes can learn to correctly interpret the alarm calls of other animals.

A great summary of our two recent 🦁 lion and 🐦 oxpecker playback studies on how giraffes use acoustic cues from these two species to stay alert - beautifully written by the @oeaw.bsky.social team.

www.oeaw.ac.at/en/news/gira...
#bioacoustics #animalbehaviour #giraffe

Giraffen haben einen Vogel – und zwar als Alarmanlage Schallforscher:innen der ÖAW zeigen anhand von Feldforschungen in Südafrika, dass Giraffen lernen können, Warnrufe anderer Tiere richtig zu deuten.

Giraffen haben einen Vogel. Und zwar als Alarmanlage. 🐦🦒
Ein Team um @antonbaotic.bsky.social zeigt: Nur Giraffen, die mit Löwen leben, verstehen die Warnrufe des Rotschnabel-Madenhackers richtig. Wo Raubtiere fehlen, geht das Wissen verloren, eine „ökologische Amnesie“. tinyurl.com/y5b4sda8

Exciting PhD program at @ituaustria.bsky.social: “Acoustics, Analysis and AI.”, bridging sound, math, and machine learning with projects from spatial hearing models to bioacoustics - in collaboration with @isf-oeaw.bsky.social/@oeaw.bsky.social
Deadline: 31 Jan 2026.
🔗 career.it-u.at/en/Job/73280

Frontiers | Learning to fear: predator recognition in giraffes is shaped by evolved sensitivity and ecological experience IntroductionPredator recognition is essential for prey survival, yet, whether responses are shaped by evolutionary predispositions or by ecological experienc...

🦒Giraffes don’t just know predators - they learn them.
Our new paper in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution shows that vigilance to lion roars is shaped by evolved sensitivity and ecological experience.
🔗 doi.org/10.3389/fevo...
@isf-oeaw.bsky.social
#bioacoustics #giraffes #animalbehaviour #ecology

Beijing was my first experience with China, a great place with great people! Enjoy the conference

Do you have hours of videos📹with animals? Speed up your watching by using BEHAVE - a user-friendly, open-source, free, zero-install tool for coding animal behaviour in video recordings!
Try BEHAVE here: behave.claude-apps.com

Read more: sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

When Reviewer Scarcity Becomes a Reason for Rejection, Scientific Integrity Is at Risk If journals reject papers due to review shortages, the peer review process itself becomes compromised.

When Reviewer Scarcity Becomes a Reason for Rejection, Scientific Integrity Is at Risk

#PeerReview #ResearchIntegrity #Science #WCRI2026 #WCRI

www.the-scientist.com/when-reviewe...

Research monopolization in the biological sciences: Charismatic species are partly to blame Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

I really resonate with this paper!Working on charismatic species is inspiring but challenging.Competition often overshadows collaboration. I understand the dilemma, as everyone tries to survive in academia, but we need more openness and support.
doi.org/10.1002/pan3...
@britishecologicalsociety.org

Mongabay is hiring! 🌎

Join our global newsroom:
🌊 Contributing Editor (Oceans)
📣 Engagement Editor
📰 Wire Reporter (Asia)
All remote + full-time.

Apply now to tell the stories shaping our planet! Relevant links in comments 👇

Examples of some recent papers from graduate students in my group - a full list of recent papers and preprints can be found here (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=pTdxVdIAAAAJ) and profile of the group here: https://egioxford.web.ox.ac.uk/members

The annual Wytham Field Team Photo!

Celebrating a successful field season with great food & good company - May 2025

Front view of the Life & Mind Building, which opened in Oct 2025: The new home of Biology at Oxford

Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Happy World Okapi Day! 🦒🌿
Meet the okapi - the giraffe’s only living relative. Hidden deep in Congo’s rainforests, this elusive “forest giraffe” remains one of the least-known large mammals. Protecting okapis means protecting Congo’s forests.

Predator experience enhances giraffe vigilance to oxpecker alarm calls - BMC Biology Background Animals often benefit from the alarm calls of other species to detect danger, but how such cues are integrated into vigilance strategies remains unclear. Giraffes (Giraffa spp.) rely on early threat detection to avoid ambush and are known hosts of red-billed oxpeckers (Buphagus erythrorhynchus), which form mutualistic associations with large mammals by feeding on ectoparasites and emitting alarm calls in response to approaching threats. While these calls are thought to provide early-warning benefits, it remains unclear how giraffes interpret them, and whether their responses vary with prior exposure to predation risk. Results We conducted playback experiments across three giraffe populations differing in predator presence to test whether giraffes adjust vigilance in response to oxpecker alarm calls. Individuals in the predator-inhabited reserve maintained vigilance longer than those in predator-free areas, suggesting that prior exposure enhances responsiveness to alarm calls. Acoustic analyses revealed that oxpecker alarm calls are characterized by low harmonic-to-noise ratios, consistent with harsh, broadband signals that are known to enhance attention and urgency perception in alarm contexts. However, call structure alone did not explain vigilance responses; instead responses were modulated by ecological context, specifically whether giraffes lived in areas with or without lions. Conclusions Our findings suggest that oxpeckers serve a sentinel-like function and that giraffes use their alarm calls as early-warning signals, with stronger responses observed in populations exposed to predators. This supports the idea that eavesdropping on heterospecific alarm calls can provide context-dependent benefits, with predator-experienced giraffes showing greater sensitivity to oxpecker alarms. By linking behavioral flexibility with ecological context, this study offers a framework for understanding how mutualistic communication systems adapt to changing predation pressures.

Our new paper is out in BMC Biology!
We show that predator experience enhances giraffe responses to oxpecker alarm calls.
Giraffes living with lions were more vigilant than those from predator-free landscapes - experience shapes awareness across species. 🦒🦁🚨

doi.org/10.1186/s129...