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Melissa Ramsay

@melissa-e-ramsay.bsky.social
1.1K followers 754 following 31 posts

PhD researcher at St Andrews' Centre for Biological Diversity and the Scottish Oceans Institute. Sensory ecology - animal (multi)sensory processing - intertidal scavengers. 🦀🌊🐟🫧 EastBio EDI/Student Rep (she/her)🌈🍉🌱

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Reposted by Melissa Ramsay
Coral City Camera @coralcitycamera.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Mama manatee and her calf swim to the surface through a cosmos of fishes 🥹〰️🐠🐟🐠🐟🐠🐮🐮〰️ #manatee #manateesofcoralcity #mamatee #babytee #coralcitycamera
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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 22/08/2026
Ants were thought to eat this parasitic plant's fruit, but cameras revealed hermit crabs as the culprits! Each crab carried off 86 fruits on average, helping spread the seeds. Its ripe scent attracts crabs and the cockroaches that pollinate it! 🧪 esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
A land hermit crab (Coenobita brevimanus) scrapes off the tiny (3mm) fruits of a fungus root (Balanophora fungosa). As it feeds, it picks up the plant's minuscule seeds that can travel on its claws, body, and shell!

Credit: Kenji Suetsugu
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Animals Doing Stuff in Groups @animalsdoingstuff.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Next stop, goby town w/ @melissa-e-ramsay.bsky.social
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Coral City Camera @coralcitycamera.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Hey just checking in! Hope everything’s fine!! ☺️ #manateesofcoralcity #manatee #justcheckingin #hopeeverythingsfine #coralcity
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Coral City Camera @coralcitycamera.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Our first queen angelfish of the year! 🙌👸🪽🐠 #queenangelfish #angelfish #holocanthusciliaris #summer #coralcitycamera
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Melissa Ramsay @melissa-e-ramsay.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
🐚🫧🦀 Some snaps from recent fieldwork: the view from our field site back to St Andrews, some mating sea hares, and some members of Team Fish living their best life 🦀🫧🐚 @animalsdoingstuff.bsky.social
View of St Andrews and the castle across the sea from the intertidal field siteThree sea hares mating in a rockpoolSome members of Team Fish hard at work in the rockpools
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Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Oh, to be a couple of little hermit crabs venturing around the tidepool 🦀🦑
Two very small hermit crabs, Pagurus samuelis. They are both facing towards the right, looking like they anticipate something. They are near/on fluffy green algae which is on coralline algae
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Martin Stevens @wildlifevision.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Spring sea slugs - so many around at the moment. The once rare rainbow #seaslugs are becoming quite common, more Polycera around than I’ve seen before, my second ever disco Doris. Here’s some recent clips - a teaser before something bigger out next week… #cornwallcoast #seaslugs #underwatermacro
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Oceana UK @oceanauk.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
🎉 Thing we love to see! 60,000 oysters restored to the Firth of Forth, Scotland 🦪 Previously wiped out by overfishing & pollution, it's heartening to see this vital habitat coming back, filtering water & bringing marine life with it 🌊 bit.ly/4uTCrvp
dunfermlinepress.com
60,000 oysters have been dropped into the Firth of Forth in restoration project
Restoration Forth has reintroduced 60,000 European flat oysters to the Firth of Forth, doubling targets to restore lost oyster beds and boost marine…
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Menestune @menestune.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
A tiny hermit crab is bullied and knocked upside-down. No worries, though, as she gets back up and then pulls her house back over her head for protection! 🦀🦑 #crustaceans #tidepool #love #adorbs #nokings #maui #photography #eyes
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Melissa Ramsay @melissa-e-ramsay.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
Fieldwork photos taken 30 minutes apart and just before we got rained on quite spectacularly! You really do just have to wait half an hour in Scotland if you don't like the weather ☀️🌊☔ @animalsdoingstuff.bsky.social
The largest rockpool we run field trials in. Three floats can be seen in the water, in the sun with blue sky above.The rocky shore half an hour later, with very ominous grey clouds and rain in the distance over St Andrews.
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Mongabay @mongabay.com · 18/03/2026
A new Amazon shipping waterway for grain exports may silence the sophisticated communication of the giant river turtle. Scientists warn that industrial noise threatens this likely endangered species’ unique social life and migration patterns. Story by @nandawenzel.bsky.social for #Mongabay.
mongabay.cc
Amazon waterway noise threatens unique social life of giant river turtles
Hatchlings talk inside their shells to time their birth, but the roar of massive barges may soon drown out their sound.
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FishSounds @fishsounds.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
First fish sounds recorded in the Southern Ocean by FishSounds friend, Fannie Shabangu, et al.! doi.org/10.1002/rse2... Since our first review didn't identify any soniferous fishes from the Antarctic, we are so happy that folks are exploring this great unknown in fish #bioacoustics!
doi.org
Rhyming in the cold: first evidence of soniferous fishes in the Southern Ocean
The acoustic ecology of Southern Ocean fishes remains unknown due to a lack of dedicated acoustic research on the fishes of this ocean. Passive acoustic monitoring data were collected at the South Af....
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Melissa Ramsay @melissa-e-ramsay.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
Last weekend's reading and exploring 🌿☀️📚 I thoroughly recommend this book by @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social for those who have not yet read! Also thoroughly recommend a walk around Burnhope Reservoir in County Durham for people around those parts!
Cover of The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane Burnhope reservoir in the sunshine with trees and white fluffy clouds in the background
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Benjamin Judkewitz @benjulab.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
How do fish localize sound without interaural cues? @johve.bsky.social et al. found a behavioral algorithm for directional hearing that predicts behavior from a pressure/motion phase comparison and accounts for how this relationship varies with distance. www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
An algorithm underlying directional hearing in fish
Veith et al. show how a fish—Danionella cerebrum—can reliably startle away from sound. It uses the relative phase between particle motion and pressure to infer the direction of sound. This sensorimoto...
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Coral City Camera @coralcitycamera.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
Oh haii 🥹 #orangespottedfilefish #filefish #juvenile #cutiepie #coralcitycamera
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Dan Stowell @danstowell.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/03/2026
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: biodcase.github.io/challenge2026 #machinelistening #BioDCASE #bioacoustics #DCASE #sound
biodcase.github.io
BioDCASE Challenge - BioDCASE
Tasks We are excited to announce the 2026 BioDCASE task line up! Multi-Channel Alignment Alignment Task 1 Bioacoustic and environmental recordings are often captured using multiple devices operating simultaneously, for example with passive autonomous recorders or animal-borne loggers. When such recordings are not temporally aligned, analyses that rely on relative …
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Melissa Ramsay @melissa-e-ramsay.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
We saw so many ragworms during fieldwork today, bright green for the breeding season! @animalsdoingstuff.bsky.social
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Portuguese Ethological Society (SPE) @spetologia.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
🚨 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
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British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU) @bou.org.uk · 20/02/2026
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 🪶🔊
A European Robin is sat on a branch.
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でんか @k-hermit.com · 18/02/2026
How to draw a hermit crab
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Garance Barbier @garant-b.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
No one: Bioacousticians:
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".
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Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
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...
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
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Journal of Experimental Biology @jexpbiol.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
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/...
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. '
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Melissa Ramsay @melissa-e-ramsay.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
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 🦀☔🪸
Three members of team fish wearing waders and carrying buckets across the rocky shore
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Dr Heather Browning (Veit) @zoophilosophy.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
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...
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Bridging Brains and Bioacoustics @braincoustics.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
📣 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
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"
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Éadin O'Mahony, PhD @eadinomahony.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
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]
royalsocietypublishing.org
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.
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Oceana UK @oceanauk.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
🌊 "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...
radionewshub.com
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.
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Coral City Camera @coralcitycamera.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
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
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Melissa Ramsay @melissa-e-ramsay.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Had a fantastic time at @asab-meetings.bsky.social Winter meeting in Edinburgh, so many great talks and conversations about sensory ecology! 🦀🐟🐦🦋
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 researcherThe front of the beautiful Royal College of Physicians building in Edinburgh, where the conference was held. The columns are decorated with Christmas wreaths
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Xavier Mouy @xaviermouy.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
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 🐟🔊🧪
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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....
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Coral City Camera @coralcitycamera.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
New octopus dropped down in Coral City 👽✌️🐙 #octopus #cephalopodsofcoralcity #cephalopod #headfoot #alien #dropdown #peaceout #coral #coralhead #coralcitycamera #miami #portmiami #biscaynebay #coralcity
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Journal of Animal Ecology @animalecology.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
🐦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
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Biological Journal of the Linnean Society @biojlinnsoc.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
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...
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Shaun Killen @shaunkillen.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
🧵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.
shoalbase.org
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.
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High Seas Alliance @highseasalliance.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
🎉 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
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.
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Cat Hobaiter @nakedprimate.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
#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... 🧪
A man giving a presentation in front of a screen with data and guppy fish on it
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British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU) @bou.org.uk · 14/11/2025
Transmission of Urgency Levels in the Alarm Calls of the Oriental Reed Warbler | doi.org/10.1002/ece3... | Ecology and Evolution | #ornithology 🪶
doi.org
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...
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Ariane Burgess MSP @ariane-burgess.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
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.
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Ocean Census @oceancensus.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
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
visit.museum.wa.gov.au
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.
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FishSounds @fishsounds.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
🐟🔊 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!
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.
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Coral City Camera @coralcitycamera.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
👋〰️🛸〰️ #southernstingray #stingraysofcoralcity #stingray #flyingsaucer #magiccarpet #flapflap #overhead #coralcitycamera #miami #portmiami #biscaynebay #coralcity
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University of St Andrews @uniofstandrews.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
🏆 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👇 ow.ly/pCFV50Xocml #EverToExcel
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Elina Mäntylä @elinamantyla.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Thompson et al. Making “scents” of how plant volatiles influence agriculturally important insects: a review academic.oup.com/ee/article/d...
academic.oup.com
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
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Mark MacKinnon @markmackinnon.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
“Nothing has improved in Gaza… Medicine is still blocked. Even food has not changed. “We hear about a truce, but we feel no safety or relief.” Gaza residents talk to our Hasan Jaber in Bureij refugee camp www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...
theglobeandmail.com
‘Truce is just a name’: Israel has killed more than 220 Gazans since start of ceasefire, Palestinians say
Next phase of peace plan not moving forward, with remains of seven Israeli hostages still unaccounted for
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Rothamsted Research @rothamsted.ac.uk · 05/11/2025
This week, we’re at #EvidenceWeek in Parliament with @senseaboutsci presenting evidence on on chemical ecology-inspired solutions for sustainable crop protection to MPs, peers and parliamentary staff, to support them in scrutinising government policy in this area.
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Lucille Chapuis @sharkslikejazz.bsky.social · 01/11/2025
How noisy are small boats underwater? Our new paper shows that slower speeds aren’t always quiet and the importance of particle motion! doi.org/10.1121/10.0... @asa-news.bsky.social @sophienedelec.bsky.social @andyradford.bsky.social @profstevesimpson.bsky.social #Bioacoustics #OceanNoise
media.tenor.com
a boat that has a license plate that says lc 8816 n.
ALT: a boat that has a license plate that says lc 8816 n.
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Oceana in Europe @oceanaeurope.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
#Halloween has arrived at sea! 👻🎃 From the surface to the seafloor, the ocean never runs out of strange, spectacular, and spooky sights. No costumes needed. 💙
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