Lara S. Burchardt
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lsburchardt.bsky.social
Lara S. Burchardt
@lsburchardt.bsky.social
520 followers 190 following 57 posts
Behavioural Biologist at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin| Rhythm and Beat Precision in Acoustic Communication and Other Systems | PhD from MfN Berlin and Free University Berlin | coding in R | she/her
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
musiccognition.bsky.social
‘If musicality did not arise from language, where did it come from?’ New preprint, Curr. Biol. In press. : doi.org/10.31234/osf...
February 1, 2026 at 7:07 PM
lsburchardt.bsky.social
Paper Out in #NYAS: Using Rhythmic Notation and Musical Analysis on Animal Communication: A Case Study on Sperm Whales🔊🐳
doi.org/10.1111/nyas...
We use Western music notation to transcribe sperm whale codas. What can we learn about them using musical analysis🎼🎶?
Graphic explaining the process to annotate sperm whale codas in western music notation. Step 1: Graphic of a person with headphones, listening. Step 2: A Spektrogram, showing sound amplitude over time, with four sperm whale clicks and three musical beats as red line. Step 3: Western Musical Notation, a 3/4 rhythm, four notes are shown.
February 2, 2026 at 10:43 AM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
biotay.bsky.social
I have prepared a video summarizing the study. Please come back here after reading the thread : )

youtu.be/bAk4PFEuWKQ English

also
youtu.be/CETjjZBMT5c Spanish
youtu.be/tkpjlCxDJZA German

(Thanks to Esau Dharma for providing the Spanish voice for Witgar Wiegele!)
Flexible use of a multi-purpose tool by a cow
YouTube video by Antonio Jose Osuna Mascaró
youtu.be
January 19, 2026 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
biotay.bsky.social
Cow Tools!

We have lived alongside cows for nearly 10,000 years.
We breed them and exploit them

It is now, only now, that we have discovered THEY CAN USE TOOLS

Here I describe our study

(paper) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... in @currentbiology.bsky.social
with @auersperga.bsky.social
January 19, 2026 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
ecbb2026.bsky.social
We know you don't want to start your year by forgetting to submit a symposia proposal before the 31 January deadline.

www.aru.ac.uk/science-and-...
#academicsky #ecbb2026
Right side: A group of meerkats representing the researchers that submitted a symposia proposal for ECBB 2026. Left side: The sad, lonely meerkat representing the one that forgot. All by themself. Submission deadline 31 January!
January 5, 2026 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
berlinbatlab.bsky.social
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...
January 5, 2026 at 12:53 PM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
wascherclaudia.bsky.social
If you work on corvid ecology, behaviour, cognition, or conservation, this might be useful for you 👇
I’ve just published CORVIDATA in Scientific Data 🐦
doi.org/10.1038/s415... (1/4)
CORVIDATA: A global dataset of morphology, ecology, sociality, and life-history in Corvidae - Scientific Data
Scientific Data - CORVIDATA: A global dataset of morphology, ecology, sociality, and life-history in Corvidae
doi.org
January 6, 2026 at 10:40 AM
lsburchardt.bsky.social
🚨Preprint doi.org/10.64898/202...
From the start of studying #rhythm production in animal vocs, I was sure rhythms can code #population info. Now shown for the 1. time in tawny pipits 🐦🎉🔊
Just as exciting: Even in arrhythmic song, rhythm parameters prove to be valuable in describing the signal.
January 2, 2026 at 12:25 PM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
animal-prattle.bsky.social
what's in a meow?? 🐈

New from @berlinbatlab.bsky.social!

1. "we examined meows and purrs to establish how individual identity is encoded"
2. stronger individual signature in purrs than in meows
3. domestic cat meows more variable than those of wild felids

#bioacoustics
#prattle 💬
#neuroskyence
Fig. 1. Spectrograms and oscillograms of (A) two meows and (B) two purrs. Oscillograms depict sound pressure over time, and spectrograms depict frequency over time. All spectrograms were created with a 1024-point FFT, 16-bit depth, and a Hamming Window with 87.5% overlap (sampling rate: 96 kHz, frequency resolution: 94 Hz, time resolution: 1.33 ms). The two pictures on the right depict Koda, a 15-year-old male Ragdoll cat, meowing and purring (credit: Marisa Idolo).
December 15, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
ecbb2026.bsky.social
Save the date for the next European Conference on Behavioural Biology!
Animal Behaviour in the Anthropocene, 1-4 September 2026 at Anglia Ruskin University.
Watch this space for updates on speakers, plenaries, and calls for abstracts!

#AcademicSky #UpcomingConferences
Save the date information for the upcoming European Conference on Behavioural Biology: Animal Behaviour in the Anthropocene. 1-4 September 2026 at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK.
July 18, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
lsburchardt.bsky.social
Amazing opportunity to work with @stephanielking.bsky.social AND Dolphins 🐬
November 10, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
avsp.bsky.social
A richly annotated dataset of co-speech hand gestures across diverse speaker contexts www.nature.com/articles/s41... Dataset comprising 2373 annotated gestures, 9 speakers across 3 distinct categories: University lecturers, Politicians, and Psychotherapists can be accessed at doi.org/10.17605/OSF...
A richly annotated dataset of co-speech hand gestures across diverse speaker contexts - Scientific Data
Scientific Data - A richly annotated dataset of co-speech hand gestures across diverse speaker contexts
www.nature.com
November 6, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
jtroscianko.bsky.social
BehaveAI is live!

Our biologically inspired video analysis tool sees motion as colour. Track animals or objects, classify their behaviour, and handle complex natural scenes with ease.

Semi-supervised annotation, no GPUs required, user-friendly, free & open source.

Pre-print tinyurl.com/BehaveAI
November 6, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
animalbehaviour.live
Only 5 days left to register! ⏰

Don’t miss the chance to connect with animal behaviour researchers from around the world and discover the latest in behavioural science.

📅 13–14 November; free, online & open to all worldwide 🌍
🔗https://ablaoc25.sciencesconf.org/
November 7, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
kelseytea.bsky.social
🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity!

We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have:
(1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs)
(2) better hand dexterity
(3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵
October 22, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
animalbehaviour.live
1️⃣ month to go! ⏰

#ABL2025, our annual international online conference is on the 13–14 Nov 🎉

6 plenaries • 24 talks • 40+ posters • 3 workshops • lively Discord chats.. and more !

🌐 Free registration — register now!
👉 ablaoc25.sciencesconf.org
October 14, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
bioacousticsau.bsky.social
Paper & incredible science alert: Our assistant professor @laurastidsholt.bsky.social & a passionate team @elena-tena.bsky.social @ebdonana.bsky.social found proof for greater nocturnal #bats 🦇 preying on migratory birds 🐦 AND devouring them in flight! #bioacoustics
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
October 16, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
marcomaiolini.bsky.social
This year marks the 100th birthday of #bioacoustics, established by Ivan Regen in 1925, which studies how animals hear, produce and propagate sound.

Let’s discover this discipline with @nicolasmathevon.bsky.social, Professor of Saint Etienne University, in the first episode of Acoustic World.
October 20, 2025 at 6:33 AM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
kokkonut.bsky.social
🚨🚨Job! 🚨🚨Permanent (75% time) job! We are a pretty awesome research group & seek a manager who deals with everything: personnel tasks, organizing retreats, preparing code for teaching / data structures for research... Fluency in German & English essential. stellenboerse.uni-mainz.de#/jgu/job/51527
stellenboerse.uni-mainz.de
October 17, 2025 at 7:38 AM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
berlinbatlab.bsky.social
Brown rats are preying on bats at urban hibernation sites – even snatching them mid-air. Conservation efforts must include non-native rodent control at key bat roosts.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
October 14, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
enourani.bsky.social
🦅PhD position 🦅 in my new group at @fbm-unil.bsky.social in Switzerland, studying how the social and resource landscapes shape the learning process for soaring flight. Deadline: Oct 30. Pls repost! career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree...
Golden eagle on the nest in Finland (by O. Karlin)
October 6, 2025 at 5:56 AM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
aosiecka.bsky.social
Brilliant work on the ontogeny of rhythm in zebra finches. "Shared rhythm goes beyond copying the temporal features of individual elements; tutees ...adjust the rhythm of non-shared intervals". 🔊 @lsburchardt.bsky.social & al: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Client Challenge
www.nature.com
October 14, 2025 at 12:04 PM
lsburchardt.bsky.social
🔊3 years in the making OUT NOW & #OA: "Zebra finch tutees not only share the melody but also the rhythm of their tutor’s song" in #ScientificReports together with Judith Varkevisser and Michelle Spierings, APCs covered by #projectDEAL.
#bioacoustics #rhythm #zebrafinch #AnimalBehavior
🧵1/6
October 13, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Reposted by Lara S. Burchardt
sarabssethi.bsky.social
Bugg is now available through GroupGets! groupgets.com/products/bug...

Real-time acoustic monitoring devices, tested from the Arctic to the tropics over long (1y+) deployments - with no maintenance!

Say goodbye to fiddly SD card retrievals and hello to instant ecological insights
Bugg v4 - Pre-Order
Bugg is the world’s first real-time bioacoustic monitoring device. Once set up, sit back and watch as live audio data streams in over months and years with almost no maintenance required.
groupgets.com
October 9, 2025 at 9:35 AM