Maria Sagot

Birds That Don't Exist: Niche Pre‐Emption as a Constraint on Morphological Evolution in the Passeroidea We use topological data analysis to reveal a persistent morphological gap in a major group of songbirds (superfamily Passeroidea). The gap remained unoccupied for millions of years, even though nearb...

Birds That Don't Exist: Niche Pre‐Emption as a Constraint on Morphological Evolution in the Passeroidea - Chia - 2026 - Ecology Letters - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Birds That Don't Exist: Niche Pre‐Emption as a Constraint on Morphological Evolution in the Passeroidea We use topological data analysis to reveal a persistent morphological gap in a major group of songbirds (superfamily Passeroidea). The gap remained unoccupied for millions of years, even though nearb...

Well damn, this is cool.

Birds That Don't Exist: Niche Pre-Emption as a Constraint on Morphological Evolution in the Passeroidea | Chia et al., 2026 | Ecology Letters

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Schematic of experimental design in new study.

Dwarf mongoose acting as a sentinel in Limpopo Province, South Africa

📢NEW paper alert

📖How #aggression between groupmates can have lasting consequences both for #cooperative #behaviour & responses to #intergroup threats:

doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

👑Led by @josharbon.bsky.social

#fieldwork #experiments #mongooses #mammals #bioacoustics
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social

Do Great Apes Know Each Other's Names? Probing Great Ape Comprehension of Social Vocal Labels — Animal Behavior and Cognition

New article out exploring great ape name recognition! We find partial evidence that zoo-living chimps & bonobos know each other's names 👀 Huge thanks to Animal Behavior and Cognition (a great open-access journal) & co-authors for your collaboration!🎉🐵

unsvr1.com/web/abc/work...

The molecular evolution of vertebrate organs Nature Ecology & Evolution - This Review discusses recent advances in the molecular evolution of vertebrate organs, including rates of evolution of organs and cell types, molecular mechanisms...

Our internal organs are evolutionary marvels. New technologies are transforming our understanding of the evolution of vertebrate organs. You can find more by reading here:
rdcu.be/e5EgU
#EvoBio #EvoDevo 🐟🦎🐢🦇🐊🦜

🦇 evolution is an amazing feature of life
Biodiversity don’t let human greed f*** this up

Social calls of pipistrelles contain a lot more information than we think. My review of my 2025 recordings offers up some thoughts and focus for future research. 🦇

Territoriality, sociality and male weaponry shape horn investment in female bovids Female weaponry remains underexplored across animal taxa. We analyzed socio-ecological predictors of female horn presence and size within the mammalian fam

New paper out with Nicole Lopez showing that predation risk, male horn size, and female territoriality drive the evolution of and investment into female horns!
"Territoriality, sociality and male weaponry shape horn investment in female bovids": academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...

Our BehaveAI paper has just come out!

Easy & effective tracking & behavioural classification, even with tiny (2px), fast moving, camouflaged objects.

Paper: doi.org/10.1371/jour...
Download: github.com/troscianko/B...

@uniexecec.bsky.social @kevinjgaston.bsky.social @jimamclgalloway.bsky.social

Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio Aguilar-Gómez et al. use exome sequencing of 347 strawberry poison frogs to uncover the genetic basis of color variation. They identify that kit, ttc39b, and bco1 underlie blue-red, yellow-red, and gr...

The last chapter of my PhD is finally out !!!! In the same species, on neighboring islands, we see radically different warning colors emerge. Evolution in action:
Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

🦋 New research challenges the Temperature-Size Rule and highlights climate change’s potential to profoundly reshape butterfly life cycles, population dynamics, and ecological interactions.

📖 Read the full paper here ➡️ buff.ly/zFrpO7t

Vocal convergence during formation of social relationships in vampire bats Abstract. In many group-living birds and mammals, the formation of affiliative relationships is hypothesized to cause vocal convergence (an increase in cal

Vocal convergence during formation of social relationships in vampire bats url: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

“Before the middle ear and its associated 'tympanic' hearing abilities, animals relied on bone-conducted sound, where nerves carry signals from vibrations in the jawbone to the brain.”

#scicomm
#fossil

www.sciencealert.com/250-million-...
🧪 🦊

🧪Before the day begins, meerkats share a unique ritual. After emerging from their burrows, they spend up to an hour "sunning" to warm up for the day. During this quiet time, they produce soft, tonal "sunning calls". Just standing, sunbathing, and calling. But why❓ #bioacoustics #meerkats #kalahari

Detecting and classifying animal calls from audio data using animal2vec Post provided by Julian Schäfer-Zimmermann An introduction for people lacking a machine-learning background We provide a non-technical explanation of the animal2vec framework, including its capabil…

Check out our new blog post!🚨

Authors provide an overview of the animal2vec framework, including its capabilities and potential for usage in animal behavior, ecology, and conservation research 🔊 🌍 🧪

Read more here👇

Head-direction cells as a neural compass in bats navigating outdoors on a remote oceanic island Animals and humans rely on their navigation skills to survive. However, spatial neurons in the brain’s “navigation circuit” had not previously been studied under real-world conditions. We conducted an...

Head-direction cells as a neural compass in bats navigating outdoors on a remote oceanic island | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Genomic analyses in Drosophila do not support the classic allopatric model of speciation Abstract. The allopatric model of speciation has dominated our understanding of speciation biology and biogeography since the Modern Synthesis. It is uncon

Is speciation usually allopatric? Genomic analyses of 93 Drosophila species pairs show that gene flow during divergence is common—even among allopatric species—challenging the classic allopatric model of speciation. academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

“We Didn't Even Think About Looking”: Broom-Wielding Veronika Shows Tool Use In Cows Isn't So Absurd After All Veronika the cow is the first documented example of flexible, multipurpose tool use in cattle – and she’s also a very good girl.

Last week I had the privilege of speaking with @auersperga.bsky.social and @biotay.bsky.social about a very talented cow. She's called Veronika, she's fabulous and she's currently getting a lot of well-deserved attention. Here's my piece for @iflscience.com:

www.iflscience.com/we-didnt-eve...

Illegal miners have forced Peru’s oldest environmental research station to suspend work Staff at the Panguana biological research station have received death threats

Illegal miners have forced Peru’s oldest environmental research station to suspend work | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Variation in sexual signals and defensive strategies elicits receiver-dependent shifts in attractiveness Summary: The degree to which calling male túngara frogs defend themselves from eavesdropping frog-biting midges alters their attractiveness to females and predatory bats, though the sensory mechanisms...

Variation in sexual signals and defensive strategies elicits receiver-dependent shifts in attractiveness url: journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Representation in science and trust in scientists in the USA - Nature Human Behaviour Druckman et al. document gaps in trust in scientists in the USA. People from groups less represented among scientists (for example, women and those with lower economic status) are less trusting. Incre...

Representation in science matters www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New study alert! Sexually selected vocalizations of Greater Mouse-Eared Bats

We recorded male Myotis myotis in mating roosts and found complex vocalizations with an individual signature and pronounced seasonal variation. Check it out!

🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Un 31 de diciembre muere,
🖋️ Susan Fenimore Cooper (1813-1894)
Escritora y naturalista estadounidense, autora del fascinante,
📖 Diario rural. Apuntes de una naturalista
Obra en el origen de la #Literatura sobre naturaleza, sostenibilidad y ecologismo, adelantada en 4 años al famoso Walden de Thoreau.

Scientists tracking the behavior of nine northern resident orcas off the coast of British Columbia observed the killer whales seemingly coordinating with Pacific white-sided dolphins to hunt salmon. https://wapo.st/4pvoH6R

Landscape factors influencing predation on capercaillie nests by two competing mesopredators: pine marten and red fox vist.ly/4hxz4 #NestPredation #Capercaillie #Marten #Fox

Meows encode less individual information than purrs and show greater variability in domestic than in wild cats - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Meows encode less individual information than purrs and show greater variability in domestic than in wild cats

Domestic cat communication. Cool paper! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Text reads: Oxford Biology Annual Lecture, 16 December 17:15, Life and Mind Building, Oxford & Online. Image of several elephants walking in a close group

Join us for our annual lecture on 16 December! We will delve into the wonders of animal seismic senses, from spider webs to elephant rumbles, with Dr Beth Mortimer 🐘🕷️

16 December 17:15, in the Life and Mind Building, Oxford & online 👇
www.biology.ox.ac.uk/event/biolog...

Scientific productivity gap based on English-language peer-reviewed papers. Shown are the maximum % differences in the number of peer-reviewed papers published by female native English speakers from a high-income country (-45%), female non-native English speakers from a high-income country (-60%), and female non-native English speakers from a lower-middle income country (-70%), compared to male native English speakers from a high-income country (red flag).

Women, non-native English speakers & those form low-income countries are disadvantaged in science but by how much? We found that women with non-English first languages from low-income countries publish up to 70% fewer in English than their counterparts. 1/5
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
#languagebarriers

taxonomy 101: whales are not fish
taxonomy 201: whales are hoofed animals
taxonomy 301: whales are fish

Tetrapod vocal evolution reveals faster rates and higher-pitched sounds for mammals Abstract. Using the voice to produce sound is a widespread form of communication and plays an important role across diverse species and contexts. Variation

Now out in Evolution @journal-evo.bsky.social

Tetrapod vocal evolution reveals faster rates and higher-pitched sounds for mammals 🐘🦉🐸.

Mammalian hearing likely allowed the rapid diversification of their vocalizations.

Open access here:
doi.org/10.1093/evol...

#bioacoustics #animalcommunication