Melissa Ramsay

Pleased to announce the BioDCASE Challenge 2026 - the Bioacoustics Data Challenge! Now with 6 different tasks to choose from, each an open-data computational challenge of its own: https://biodcase.github.io/challenge2026/ #machinelistening #BioDCASE #bioacoustics #DCASE #sound

We saw so many ragworms during fieldwork today, bright green for the breeding season! @animalsdoingstuff.bsky.social

🚨 New study by #SPEmembers 🚨
#AnimalBehaviour #Ethology

"Acoustic repertoire and anatomical features of the flying gurnard from the Adriatic Sea"
Horvatić & Vieira et al. with SPE members Manuel Vieira, M Clara Amorim, and Paulo Fonseca @ Journal of zoology

A European Robin is sat on a branch.

Part-night lighting fails to restore natural song rhythms in urban European Robins | Environmental Pollution | doi.org/10.1016/j.en... | #ornithology #robins #lightpollution #acoustics 🪶🔊

How to draw a hermit crab

The thumbnail of a youtube video. A hand carries a minuscule microphone in front of a bird of prey, who is staring at it intently. The title of the video reads "I interviewed animals with a tiny mic again".

No one:
Bioacousticians:

Two crabs (Cryptosoma bairdii) in mating posture (the male is larger and is sort of enveloping/hugging the smaller female). They are calappids, so they have big broad claws and cute eyestalks

Valentine's Day themed crab thread! ❤️🦀🦑🧪

The shamefaced heart crab, Cryptosoma bairdii, has nothing to be ashamed of because we love them (and in this photo, they love each other if you know what I mean)

1/7

Photo: Adrien Weckel
doris.ffessm.fr/Especes/Cryp...

Screenshot of the first page of the Inside JEB article. Top line, left: INSIDE JEB Top line, right: SPECIAL ISSUE Second line, right: SENSORY PERCEPTION IN A CHANGING WORLD Third line, left: title: Sensing the world: perception at a time of unprecedented change Beneath the third line is a photograph of a butterfly on a hibiscus flower. Beneath the photo is the caption: A Japanese yellow swallowtail butterfly (Papilio xuthus) perched on a hibiscus flower. Photo credit: Michiyo Kinoshita The text of the article begins beneath: 'The world is changing, and fast. In 2020, the Earth passed a tipping point. '

The Inside JEB article accompanying our new Special Issue, #SensoryPerceptionInAChangingWorld, provides a brief overview of the issue, highlighting the key points and take-home message from each article

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Three members of team fish wearing waders and carrying buckets across the rocky shore

A brief break from the beautiful Scottish weather we've been having lately finally allowed us to get out for a little spot of fieldwork yesterday! @animalsdoingstuff.bsky.social 🦀☔🪸

So excited to see this recommendation coming from the Animal Sentience Committee, really hoping it leads to some real change in decapod protection
www.gov.uk/government/p...

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

The diffusion of cooperative and solo bubble net feeding in Canadian Pacific humpback whales Abstract. Animal culture, information and behaviours acquired and shared by social learning are a form of biodiversity with intrinsic and practical value.

New paper on the social learning of bubble net feeding by humpbacks in British Columbia, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B 🐋
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

#marmam @bcwhales.bsky.social @seamammalresearch.bsky.social @lrendell.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social [1/5]

Government criticised for ‘glacial pace’ writing UN high seas treaty into law The Government is moving at a “glacial pace” to ratify a landmark UN pact to protect delicate ecosystems in international waters, a coalition of green groups has said.

🌊 "As an ocean nation, we can & should be leading the way" @hugotagholm.bsky.social

The #HighSeasTreaty has entered into force thanks to the 81 countries who ratified it. Incredible news. But where's the UK? The govt MUST move to ratify, before we're left behind
www.radionewshub.com/articles/new...

Porcupine puffer with side-eye so strong it deserves to be a reaction gif 👀🐡 #porcupinepuffer #pufferfish #pufferfishofcoralcity #sideeye #reactiongif #coral #coralcitycamera #miami #portmiami #biscaynebay #coralcity

A picture of me standing in front of my poster, titled The acoustic ecology of foraging intertidal invertebrates and fish, talking to a fellow sensory ecology researcher

The front of the beautiful Royal College of Physicians building in Edinburgh, where the conference was held. The columns are decorated with Christmas wreaths

Had a fantastic time at @asab-meetings.bsky.social Winter meeting in Edinburgh, so many great talks and conversations about sensory ecology! 🦀🐟🐦🦋

Knock knock, who's there? Identifying wild species‐specific fish sounds with passive acoustic localization and random forest models Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is a useful non-destructive tool for evaluating species presence, diversity and abundance. However, in marine environments, a dearth of tools and methods for identif....

Excited to see this paper out!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

> 1,000 fish calls from 8 fish species identified including 5 whose wild calls had never been documented. The paper shows species-specific sound characteristics that offers a foundation for future species-specific detectors
🐟🔊🧪

New octopus dropped down in Coral City 👽✌️🐙 #octopus #cephalopodsofcoralcity #cephalopod #headfoot #alien #dropdown #peaceout #coral #coralhead #coralcitycamera #miami #portmiami #biscaynebay #coralcity

🐦Community composition coupled with habitat fragmentation drives acoustic divergence in bird assemblages

"We demonstrate how birds adjust their sound frequencies via acoustic niche partitioning driven by both community composition and habitat fragmentation"

📖 Read the full paper ➡️ buff.ly/B75UgYW

What's that? You didn't know boxfish made sound? Me neither...

It turns out all species (Atlantic & Pacific) do, yet little is known about how this evolved. A novel structure found only in the Atlantic species offered the answer, but it isn't quite what you think...🌍 🧪

doi.org/10.1093/biol...

ShoalBase | Join, Explore, Contribute Now ShoalBase offers a global database on fish social behaviour, supporting research, conservation, and ecology through community contributions and visual data mapping.

🧵1/9 There are 35,000+ fish species, but we have formal social-behaviour classifications for a tiny fraction. Most knowledge lives in the experience of researchers, fishers, divers, aquarists, naturalists, and Indigenous communities, but almost none of it is centralised. So we built ShoalBase.org.

Promotional image for the High Seas Treaty with a background of a city skyline at night. Text highlights the treaty's entry into force on 17 January 2026, calling for celebration and action for the ocean under the slogans "Oceans Are Life" and "#ProtectTheOceans." Logos of High Seas Alliance and Greenpeace included.

🎉 After decades of negotiation, the #HighSeasTreaty is officially on the countdown to entry into force!

The Treaty enters into force on 17 Jan 2026: a milestone for global ocean protection.

How will you celebrate this historic day?

#BBNJ #60ToGlobal

A man giving a presentation in front of a screen with data and guppy fish on it

#teamSTRANGE goes to Switzerland! @mikemwebster.bsky.social talking @ Uni Bern about sampling biases in animal behaviour research and how acknowledging them helps us improve replications and ask cool new questions!

www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪

Transmission of Urgency Levels in the Alarm Calls of the Oriental Reed Warbler Previous studies revealed that oriental reed warblers (Acrocephalus orientalis) produce alarm calls containing diverse syllable types in response to intruders. We selected three distinct syllable typ...

Transmission of Urgency Levels in the Alarm Calls of the Oriental Reed Warbler | doi.org/10.1002/ece3... | Ecology and Evolution | #ornithology 🪶

Approving the Rosebank oil field would be a catastrophic mistake for Scotland’s climate, economy, and communities.

Rosebank will not lower bills or improve energy security. What it will do is lock us into climate chaos while profits flow to shareholders and Norway’s sovereign wealth fund.

New species of mangrove crab discovered in Western Australia | Western Australian Museum Deep in the mangroves of Exmouth Gulf, scientists have identified a new species of crab: Parasesarma otiense.

NEW SPECIES of mangrove crab discovered in Western Australia, and registered to the Ocean Census. Congratulations to Ocean Census Science Network member Dr Andrew Hosie and Ana Hara from #WAMuseum. 👇

visit.museum.wa.gov.au/learn/news-s...

@cirripedia.bsky.social

Visual summaries of the additions made to the datasets and recordings in FishSounds Versions 2 and 3. Top: Lollipop plot of the number of total and newly added references per publication year. Left: Spectrograms of select recordings added to the FishSounds database in the latest versions, showing representative grunts and boatwhistles of the Gulf toadfish and very fast repetitive ticks of a salmon that could not be identified to species. Right: Bar plot of the number of total and newly added recordings on the FishSounds database, either hosted on the website or through links to FishBase and the Macaulay Library.

🐟🔊
New publication about all the exciting additions we made to FishSounds throughout versions 2 and 3: doi.org/10.1111/geb....!

Since then, we've added even more recordings thanks to the FishEye Collaborative, and we have a lot more planned for next year!

👋〰️🛸〰️ #southernstingray #stingraysofcoralcity #stingray #flyingsaucer #magiccarpet #flapflap #overhead #coralcitycamera #miami #portmiami #biscaynebay #coralcity

🏆 Green Gown Award WINNER! Huge congratulations to the St Andrews Nature Networks project for winning in the Nature Positive category. 🌿 Check out the project here👇
https://ow.ly/pCFV50Xocml
#EverToExcel

Making “scents” of how plant volatiles influence agriculturally important insects: a review Abstract. Plants emit hundreds, if not thousands, of different volatile chemical compounds, although the function of most individual volatiles remains elus

Thompson et al. Making “scents” of how plant volatiles influence agriculturally important insects: a review academic.oup.com/ee/article/d...