The Acoustic Life

News and updates:

1. Abhinav, Nakul, Priya and Vaishnavi's work on syntactic convergence in budgerigar vocal sequences is now published in JEB!! Read the paper here: https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/226/20/jeb245678/334187/Higher-order-dialectic-variation-and-syntactic 

2. Read about Abhijith's fantastic work monitoring eagle nests in Wayanad in the Times of India! : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/a-hawks-eye-view-of-an-eagles-nest/ 

3. Abhinav and Shikhara's paper on Spelaeornis vocal sequences is published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology!! Read here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00265-023-03385-9 

4. The lab has moved to the EOBU, JNCASR, Bengaluru on Aug 1, 2023.

5. Vaibhav's paper on the biomechanics of barbet bills is now published. Our collaboration with Sushma Reddy is out in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, examining biomechanical tradeoffs experienced during cavity excavation in wooden substrates using finite element analysis. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.2395 

6. AK's review on the biomechanics of bird bills is published in JEB's centenary special issue on comparative biomechanics! https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/226/Suppl_1/jeb245171/297128/Biomechanics-illuminates-form-function 

7. See Vaibhav's preprint on shape diversification in the bills of Asian and African barbets: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.20.508664v1 

8. Ram and Vaibhav's paper on bats of semiarid grasslands has been published in the Journal of Arid Environments! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0140196322001136 

9. Shikhara and Varun's paper on frog vocal sequences is published in Animal Behaviour! You can read the paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347221003808 

10. Rohit and Ram's paper on Himalayan bat communities is published! You can read the paper open access at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01939-3 

11. Our review on community bioacoustics is now published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution! Congratulations to Vaibhav, Sutirtha, Abhinav, Ram and Nafisa! You can read it here, to learn more about what acoustic communities can tell us: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.706445/full 

12. Krishnapriya Tamma, AK and Sushma Reddy's paper on morphological diversification in the Ramphastoidea is now up as a preprint! Here, we compared morphological diversity in Asian, African and Neotropical barbet clades (the latter including toucans). Read the preprint here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.29.454288v1 

13. Click at the link to read AK's article on Birdcount India about identifying barbets from calls: https://birdcount.in/vocal-identification-of-brown-headed-and-white-cheeked-barbet/ 

14. Sutirtha and Nafisa's paper made the cover of the June 2021 issue of Biology Open! Check the cover out here: https://journals.biologists.com/bio/issue/10/6 to see Siva R's lovely photo of a Marsh Babbler (Pellorneum palustre), a threatened endemic bird of the Brahmaputra floodplain grasslands.

15. Sutirtha and Nafisa's work on grasslands in Rajasthan and Arunachal Pradesh was just published in Biology Open! You can read the paper at: https://journals.biologists.com/bio/article/10/6/bio058612/269190/Convergent-acoustic-community-structure-in-South and do also check out the journal's "First Person" interview with Sutirtha!

16. AK and Sarthak's article on the calls of Perdicula bush quails on Birdcount India: https://birdcount.in/identifying-bush-quails-by-songs-and-calls/ 

17. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology's "Birds of the World" resource is now free for Indian birdwatchers and ornithologists! AK is a species account author on this valuable resource. Check it out! https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/home 

18. AK's paper on visual signals in four bird lineages is published in Biology Open! Check it out at https://bio.biologists.org/content/9/9/bio052316 to learn more about pittas, barbets, parakeets, sandgrouse and their amazing color patterns. Museum specimens are a rich resource of data on birds!

19. AK's article illustrating vocal identification using the genus Prinia, on Birdcount India: https://birdcount.in/identifying-prinias-by-songs-and-calls/

20. Jigu from Research Matters covered two recent papers from the lab! Read at: https://researchmatters.in/news/listening-birds-amidst-urban-hustle-bustle