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Martin Minarik

@martinvs.bsky.social

28 followers 37 following 29 posts

Birds and science and shit

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Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · 8d

The call example also (in fact, mainly) including Chiffchaff also doesn't help 😅

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · 8d

The sound example they provide here is a bit confusing. There's a Chiffchaff calling in it, too - in fact, the first two sharp calls are Chiffchaff, only the third is the Yellow-browed Warbler.

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · 13d

My favourite figure from our new paper on lateral line development in Sterlet sturgeon (doi.org/10.7554/eLif...). In this one, we use targeted gene knockout and show that in (mosaic) absence of FoxG1, ectopic electroreceptors develop instead of mechanosensory hair cells!

#fishsci #evo-devo #CRISPR

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · 14d

The full version of our CRISPR paper on Sterlet lateral line just got published, showing the conserved role of Atoh1 in electroreceptor & hair cell development, and FoxG1 promoting mechanosensory but repressing electrosensory fate!

doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

#sturgeon #fishsci #ancientfish #evo-devo

Atoh1 is required for the formation of lateral line electroreceptors and hair cells, whereas FoxG1 represses an electrosensory fate

Targeting Atoh1 for CRISPR/Cas9-mediated mutagenesis in sturgeon results in missing electroreceptors as well as mechanosensory hair cells, supporting conserved developmental mechanisms, whereas ectopi...

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Aug 16

Interestingly, while Sturgeons cannot swim backwards, they seem to be able to speak Spanish backwards 😅

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Jul 7

That sounds great, thanks! Will have a look!

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Jul 7

Bike twitching should be the only acceptable form of twitching! 😂 Lovely bird!

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Jul 7

Thanks! Might give it a go then, but at this stage I still prefer improving my ID skills by manually raking through all the recordings 😃 Will need those later to be able to assess which classifier works best for me anyway, and how reliable they are 🤷🏻‍♂️

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Jul 5

Thanks! No, slowly working through it, the old-fashioned way. Tried BTO Acoustic Pipeline, but seemed to be missing quite a lot of the faint calls, and misidentifying some loud ones (Wigeon/Oystercatcher being repeatedly suggested for what was a resident Little Owl). May give it another go, though.

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Jul 5

Don't get too excited about the landfowl NFCs. The first one is a Quail, yay! But the other two are just Pheasants. Nocturnal migration? No. Nocturnal flight call? Yes, if a few meters worth of escape flight after being flushed by a fox, or something, counts :)

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Jul 5

Maybe just for better readability, here's the same data split by major bird taxa.

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Jul 5

Waders are more evenly distributed throughout the year. This will a nice one to plot by species at some later point. Same with rallids, in fact. Anyway, back to IDing now, I guess 😂

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Jul 5

Overwhelming majority of the autumnal songbird flight calls are Redwing. They clearly cluster into nights with lots of movement. The concentration of rallid calls (Moorhen, Coot, Water Rail) into spring months is also nice 😊

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Jul 5

Avoiding the important steps in processing my #nocmig data (IDing a vast backlog of nocturnal flight calls from 2020-2023, and organising data from 2023 onwards), I tried to plot a subset of the calls I had already processed. A nice glimpse of what's to follow though 😊

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Apr 11

Interesting! I would have thought they'd rely on electroreception from early on, considering their head is already practically covered with ampullae of Lorenzini at the onset of feeding (doi.org/10.7554/eLif...).

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Mar 26

Another bit of insight into electroreceptor development in sturgeons by the Baker lab, the full version of Alex Campbell's paper is now available on eLife.

elifesciences.org/articles/99798

Opposing roles for Bmp signalling during the development of electrosensory lateral line organs

In sturgeon, fewer electrosensory organs form after targeting Bmp5 for CRISPR/Cas9-mediated mutagenesis, whereas more form after chemically blocking all Bmp signalling shortly before their primordia e...

elifesciences.org

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Mar 24

Meanwhile, Redwing counts indicate these winter thrushes are already leaving East Anglia for Scandinavia, while Moorhens and Coots will be ramping up their territorial flights with the coming spring. Good to hear a Barn Owl above our village too, along with the usual Tawny.

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Mar 24

Here's a screenshot of a spectrogram of the Stone-curlew as shown in Audacity.

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Mar 24

Recorded some migrating bird calls near Cambridge on Saturday night, and what a lovely surprise to hear a Stone-curlew amongst them! Same day RSPB posted a #SpringArrivalSpotlight about this rare bird on Bluesky 🙂 What a timing!

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Mar 24

After you posted this, a Stone-curlew flew over our Cambridge garden the following night 😊

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Mar 10

Common Frogs going at it during the sunny spell this weekend. Video sped up 5x, sound is in original speed to appreciate the impressive chorus of croaks. #frogspawn

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Mar 10

Common Frogs taking the most of the UK's lovely spring weather this weekend.

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Feb 16

Being used to Nothern Pintails staying so far out on open water that they usually occupy just a few dozen pixels on my desperate photo attempts, this one was quite a nice surprise on our brief stopover on Dernford reservoir near Stapleford, Cambs today 😊

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Feb 2

Celebrating the #WorldWetlandsDay with a visit to WWT Welney today 😊

Martin Minarik @martinvs.bsky.social · Jan 10

"at a distance of 100 cm in Cambridge tap water, signals of approximately 30 μV were observed."

🔌🐟 Time to pour myself a glass of the stuff, and gulp proudly on the medium in which the electric field of Gymnarchus was first characterised by H. W. Lissmann in 1951 😊

www.nature.com/articles/167...

Continuous Electrical Signals from the Tail of a Fish, Gymnarchus niloticus Cuv. - Nature

Nature - Continuous Electrical Signals from the Tail of a Fish, Gymnarchus niloticus Cuv.