Dr Stephanie Mason

Stephanie is a Project Officer for the Threatened Species Index (TSX) within the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN). The TSX integrates long-term monitoring data for Australia’s threatened and near-threatened species to estimate trends in abundance at national, state and regional levels. Stephanie's role focusses on working with data providers to incorporate their data into the TSX database to generate up-to-date and robust trends for the annual index release.

In addition to her role with TSX, Stephanie continues her research in behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology. In 2025, Stephanie completed her PhD at the University of Western Australia studying the development of complex vocal communication in Western Australian magpies, providing the first evidence of a non-human animal learning meaningful call sequences akin to sentences. Stephanie has also spent time researching the development of signature whistles and "pops" in Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, and has worked as a Consultant Zoologist performing ornithological surveys of at-risk bird species around wind farm developments across remote WA. 

Publications

Mason, S.L. & Ridley, A.R. (in press). Comprehension precedes production of complex call sequences. Animal Behaviour. [Preprint posted on bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.06.22.733898]

Mason, S.L., King, S.L., Ridley, A.R. (2026). Ontogenetic evidence of socially learned call sequences in Western Australian magpies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 293 (2066): 20251620. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.1620

Mason, S.L. (2025). The emergence of multi-level combinatoriality in a life-long vocal learner: ontogenetic and structural evidence of socially learned call sequences in the Western Australian magpie. [Doctoral Dissertation, The University of Western Australia] https://doi.org/10.26182/jdj0-hd49