Wild Animal Welfare Seminar Series

hybrid seminar series

Towards bioacoustic welfare indices for urban rats

November 10, 2026 | 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm (GMT)

Nick Jourjine is a postdoctoral research scientist at Basis Research Institute, where he uses passive monitoring to study social dynamics in wild rats. Previously, as a postdoc at Harvard University and the University of Zürich, he studied the neural mechanisms and ecological correlates of variation in wild mouse vocalizations. His work uses rodent vocal communication to explore questions bridging behavioral neuroscience and ecology.

Nick will present preliminary data validating welfare metrics for wild urban rats using passive acoustic monitoring and thermal video. He examines two vocal categories that lab studies have linked to negative and positive affective states (20 kHz “alarm” calls and 50 kHz “social” calls). He asks whether these calls are detectable in wild populations, whether their relative use shifts after pest control interventions, and how it varies across a natural-to-urban gradients. He will also highlight “squeaks,” a call little studied in the lab but linked to conflict in wild rats, and share plans to build on this work by identifying ecological drivers of welfare.