UCPH Behavioural Ecology Group

📢 Curious about our research on #AnimalBehaviour, welfare, and conservation? Visit our dedicated website to explore more about our past and ongoing projects. 🔗 behavioural-ecology-group.com #SciComm #Ethology #Bioacoustics #AnimalCognition #AnimalWelfare #AnimalConservation #AnimalBehavior

How do birds hit extreme notes despite their body size? Analysing >1,000 species, a new study reveals that when birds evolve unusual vocal frequencies for their body size, they also develop physical adaptations to ensure those extreme notes are sung loudly and efficiently. #Bioacoustics #SciComm

Very glad that this is finally out! Former PhD student Bing found that wild plains zebras use visual and tactile cues to decide when to move as a group. Thanks to Cedric Sueur for the collaboration!

🐒 Do humans and wild macaques co-create culture? While human expansion often disrupts wildlife, a new study shows shared spaces can actually lead to novel interspecific traditions. Explore the co-construction of behaviours introduced by @mfhansen.bsky.social #Conservation #Primatology #SciComm

New paper on sheep vocal expression of negative arousal using behaviour and eye thermal profiles as independent indicators for validation 🐑🐑🐑 @behaveco.bsky.social

🎉 New IBAC website just dropped. ibac.info Fresh look. Same passion for #bioacoustics. 🔊🦇 🐸🦉🐊🐟🐝 Now with more info on who we are and what we get up to.

A huge win for rhino reintroduction! A new study led by our former PhD student @damaris-riedner.bsky.social shows that zoo and wild rhinos share the same vocal structure. This suggests that relocating zoo rhinos to the wild shouldn't disrupt social interactions due to communication barriers.

What is much more fun than watching a football match? Watching & scoring parakeet videos together 🤗 3h with 11 people spared 4 days of work for 1 student 💪🏼 @behaveco.bsky.social

My second PhD paper is out What do we know about vocal communication of emotion between different species of terrestrial tetrapods? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... I was lucky to work on this project with Elodie Briefer (@ebriefer.bsky.social), Katarzyna Pisanski and Florence Levrero.

🌍 We are excited to launch our new "Media & Outreach" page! From decoding animal emotions with #AI to understanding bioacoustics, discover our group's work featured in @nytimes.com, @news.sky.com, RTS, @ndr.de and more. #SciComm #Bioacoustics #Research #MediaCoverage #UCPH

Can Artificial Intelligence help us understand what animals are really feeling? Our group leader @ebriefer.bsky.social explains how we use machine learning to decode animal emotions through their vocalisations in this talk at @oredev.org. Watch here! 👇 #Bioacoustics #AI #AnimalWelfare #Ethology

New study with collaborators from the INRAe showing that people recognise horse negative facial expressions more accurately than positive ones www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New paper by MSc student Alice Fratesi showing that long-tailed macaques are often featured in unethical or exploitative content in online posts, emphasizing the need to promote responsible online engagement: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @ediminin.bsky.social @behaveco.bsky.social

If anyone wants to learn a bit about our work on vocal expression of emotions, here is a recording of the talk I gave at @oredev.org conference last month in Malmö: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDPS...

Can social media posts help anti-poaching teams? A new study validates using citizen science data to predict snaring hotspots in fenced reserves: a novel approach to protect Kruger's carnivores. Co-authored by former PhD student @damaris-riedner.bsky.social. #WildlifeProtection #Conservation

New paper out by PhD student @damaris-riedner.bsky.social, on southern white rhinoceroses, showing that zoo and wild populations do not sound too different 🦏🦏🦏 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... @behaveco.bsky.social

I'm excited about IBAC next week - *the* conference for anyone interested in animal sounds http://ibac25.com/ #bioacoustics I'm especially excited because my lovely team will be presenting their work there - here's a preview!

In bioacoustics, our methods matter. Using different machine learning techniques for caller ID can lead to conflicting results, making it hard to compare studies. A new preprint asks: which analysis pipeline is the most reliable? 📈 Find more at: www.behavioural-ecology-group.com/same-data-di...

For over 5,000 y, chanting has been practiced across many Western and Eastern traditions. Chants share distinctive acoustic traits which have evolved culturally to optimize listener relaxation. 👇 new paper @pnas.org by ENES Bioacoustics Research Lab & Co #bioacoustics www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

@behaveco.bsky.social

Working on inter-species communication and AI? Submit your application to the Coller-Dolittle price! Looking forward to read many interesting applications! 🤓

New study reveals aborted lunges in inshore South African Bryde’s whales—mouths stay shut at peak speed, potentially reflecting failed attempts or strategic prey herding/energy saving. 🐋A novel insight into rorqual feeding plasticity. Read more at: www.behavioural-ecology-group.com/why-keep-you...

Orcas rub each other’s backs with seaweed to slough off dead skin. Learn more: scim.ag/3Gai9t6

Who knew I would be involved in a study on whales 🐋🐋🐋 😬Nice work by former PhD student Jacopo di Clemente @behaveco.bsky.social

They live among us... but are they really booming? A new study busts the “overabundant macaque” myth, revealing population declines, flawed data, and why intact forests are still essential for these adaptable yet threatened species. 🐒 Read more at: www.behavioural-ecology-group.com/threatened-s...

Very proud of Damaris Riedner for successfully defending her PhD thesis on rhino genetics, socio-spatial behaviour and bioacoustics yesterday! Thanks to co-supervisors Rasmus Heller & Marina Scheumann and examiners @angelastoeger.bsky.social & Adrian Shrader. @behaveco.bsky.social

How do whales and dolphins stay warm in icy seas? 🐳 New research shows small cetaceans rely on blubber quality, while giants like blue whales benefit from sheer size—lower surface-to-volume ratios mean less heat loss. 🐳 Read more at : www.behavioural-ecology-group.com/size-specifi...

If you are interested in interspecies communication, join us for the final stage of the 2024-2025 Coller-Dolittle Prize competition on May 15 at 15:00 CET for a nice list of speakers and talks (free online event): coller-dolittle-24.sites.tau.ac.il

What can 40+ years of macaque behaviour teach us about the evolution of sociality? Discover #MacaqueNet — a global collaboration of 100+ scientists building the first open-access, standardised database of macaque social interactions. www.behavioural-ecology-group.com/macaquenet-a...

2025. Transformer-based audio-visual multimodal fusion for fine-grained recognition of individual sow nursing behaviour www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Did you know many animals can produce TWO voices at once? A new study published in @royalsociety.org and supervised by @ebriefer.bsky.social reveals that the simultaneous production of two distinct vocal frequencies plays a crucial role in animal communication. 📚 Read more: doi.org/10.1098/rstb...

🐒 Have you ever wondered how animals use gestures to communicate? Join @kirstyegraham.bsky.social as they share open-source tools that can enhance our ability to compare bodily communication across species! 📆Saturday, February 22⏰ 5 pm GMT |1 pm EST |10 am PST🔗 Register here:https://rb.gy/fb4rer

Join @biologen.bsky.social on March 26, 2025, for a MathWorks webinar exploring how AI-powered analysis is unlocking the hidden language of animals. 🚀 Discover how #MATLAB tackles AI challenges like scalability, interpretability & deployment! ⏰ 2:00 PM GMT+1 fr.mathworks.com/company/even...

Join @biologen.bsky.social on March 26, 2025, for a MathWorks webinar exploring how AI-powered analysis is unlocking the hidden language of animals. 🚀 Discover how #MATLAB tackles AI challenges like scalability, interpretability & deployment! ⏰ 2:00 PM GMT+1 fr.mathworks.com/company/even...

🐶🐕🐩 My colleagues in the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary) are conducting a survey of dog owners. So if you are a dog owner, please consider completing their survey at tally.so/r/nPXKPb. #dogs

"This breakthrough provides solid evidence that #AI can decode emotions across multiple species based on vocal patterns. It has the potential to revolutionize #AnimalWelfare, #LivestockManagement, and conservation," says @ebriefer.bsky.social. 📖 Read more: www1.bio.ku.dk/english/news... #SciComm

Can #AI help us decode animal communication & protect biodiversity? Join @biologen.bsky.social on April 24, 2025, for an exclusive Danish-speaking webinar on how AI-driven #bioacoustics is transforming conservation & animal welfare. 📅 Don’t miss out — sign up now! dm.dk/kalender/000...

2025. A new approach for better understanding animal consciousness phys.org/news/2025-02...

Visit the website of the Behavioural Ecology Group at @ucph.bsky.social: behavioural-ecology-group.com. Led by @ebriefer.bsky.social, our group explores the fascinating connections between vertebrate behaviour, emotion, communication, and cognition. #SciComm #Biodiversity #Welfare #Conservation

What if we could compare animal social structures across time and space? Now we can! The MacaqueNet database spans 14 macaque species and 61 populations over 40+ years, unlocking new possibilities in comparative social behaviour research. 🔎 Explore the project at doi.org/10.1111/1365...

🚨 BREAKING: #AI can decode animal emotions! For the first time, #MachineLearning recognizes emotions in vocalizations from multiple ungulate species with high accuracy. Could this revolutionize #AnimalWelfare and #Conservation? 🔬 Read more at www.behavioural-ecology-group.com/machine-lear...

This sweet little thesis/internship topic is still free! Come work with us on yellowhammer song 💛

Very proud of this one: new paper using AI to classify emotional valence from 7 ungulate species my team has recorded over the years. We also publish the database of call open access along the paper :-) @behaveco.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Do you know a parrot that talks or sings? We are always looking for more recordings of pet parrots to help us understand language, musicality, and interaction of various information types in vocal signals. #manyparrots #bioacoustics www.manyparrots.org

🐦 How do Arctic #Seabirds recognise each other over long distances? New #Bioacoustics research shows that little auks retain their vocal identity even as their calls travel over 1 km, defying typical sound attenuation patterns! Discover why this matters for their social lives 🔽 #SciComm #WildLife

You've a master's degree in animal behaviour, acoustics, ecology... + you're ranked in the top 3 with an excellent grade. There's a possibility of PhD funding on a rodent's ultrasonic vocalisations (fieldwork in Africa, sound analysis in France). If interested, please send me your CV. #bioacoustics

Lots of people feed animals, and know that it alters their behavior. But since it often makes them do cute things like eat out of our hands, we don't mind! But it alters far more than that. It alters the animals' BODIES. www.sciencenews.org/article/hand...