Variation of migration routes in the central Asian-breeding Common Cuckoo population influenced by the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
September 2025
Ecological barriers present significant challenges to bird migration by limiting the availability of stopover sites and shelters. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, a major migratory barrier located in higher...
Visual cognition of birds and its underlying neural mechanism: A review
2022
Birds have acute vision and many remarkable visual cognition abilities, due to their unique living environment. The underlying neural mechanisms have also attracted interests of researchers in neuroscience....
Negative effects of artificial nest boxes on birds: A review
2023
Artificial nest boxes are placed to attract birds to nest and breed in a specific location, and they are widely used in avian ecology research and in the attraction of insectivorous birds. There is...
A review of eDNA technology in avian monitoring: Current status, challenges and future perspectives
June 2025
In recent years, environmental DNA (eDNA) has garnered significant attention as a novel tool in biodiversity monitoring, recognized for its efficiency, convenience, and non-invasiveness. Despite its...
Birds of a feather: Comprehensive plumage colour analysis for a revised subspecies classification of the Chestnut-winged Babbler (Cyanoderma erythropterum) species complex
December 2025
Quantitative analysis of colouration is an essential tool for subspecies delimitation but has always posed a challenge in avian taxonomy. In this study on the Chestnut-winged Babbler (Cyanoderma erythropterum)...
Vultures as a model for testing molecular adaptations of dietary specialization in birds
2023
Vultures are the only obligate scavengers among extant vertebrates. They provide valuable ecological services in ecosystems through removing carcasses, thus preventing the growth of other scavenger...
Avian phylogenetic and functional diversity and their influencing factors in urban parks of Nanjing, China
December 2025
The acceleration of global urbanization has caused habitat loss, fragmentation, and decrease of habitat quality, often leading to a decline in biodiversity. However, most previous urbanization studies...
Non-selective waterbird hunting in a Natura 2000 site results in killing of protected species: A case study from western Poland
September 2025
Non-selective hunting of waterbirds poses a significant challenge in biodiversity-rich areas such as Important Bird Areas (IBAs), where protected and game species congregate. Here, we present evidence...
Quantifying avian wing shapes: Evaluating indices, their relationships, and ecological correlates
December 2025
Avian wings are central to their remarkable flight ability and diverse life history strategies, including behaviors such as fighting and mating. These multifaceted functions are intricately tied to...
Migration pattern of a population of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) breeding in East Asian tropical region
2024
Birds exhibit a high degree of migratory diversity, which is influenced by various ecological factors and life history strategies. Conducting studies on tropical bird migration, of which research is...
Avian acoustic communication: Understanding of peripheral and central neural systems with ecological adaptations
June 2025
Avian vocal communication represents one of the most intricate forms of animal language, playing a critical role in behavioral interactions. Both peripheral and central auditory-vocal pathways are essential...
Swan Project promotes citizen science initiative through a public bird migration tracking
December 2025
Phylogenetic definitions for 25 higher-level clade names of birds
2022
Knowledge of the higher-level phylogenetic relationships of birds has grown substantially during the past two decades due to the application of genomic data. However, the nomenclature of higher-level...
More than a simple egg: Underlying mechanisms of cold tolerance in avian embryos
2023
Avian embryos, which develop within eggs, exhibit remarkable tolerance to extremely low temperatures. Despite being a common trait among all birds, the mechanisms underlying this cold tolerance in avian...
A systematic review of avian response to urbanization in China: Research trends, current insights, and future directions
December 2025
Urbanization is one of the most extreme forms of land-use alteration that is advancing across the world with unprecedented speed. As the largest developing country, China has developed a unique path...
Density dependence and weather drive dabbling duck spatiotemporal distributions and intercontinental migration
December 2025
Understanding migratory waterfowl spatiotemporal distributions is important because, in addition to their economic and cultural value, wild waterfowl can be infectious reservoirs of highly pathogenic...
Responses of steppe birds to habitat fragmentation: Insights from niche specialization and functional traits
September 2025
Habitat fragmentation poses a significant threat to bird communities, especially those in open and semi-open ecosystems such as steppes. This study investigates how steppe birds adapt to and utilize...
Predatory birds in agroforestry: Dawn of a new era for biological control from multitrophic interactions
September 2025
Ensuring food security for a rapidly growing global population amidst resource limitations and climate change is a major challenge. Agroforestry an ecologically sustainable land-use system that integrates...
Duets encode morphological information from both partners in Rufous Horneros
December 2025
Acoustic signals in birds are often influenced by body and beak size (the morphological constraint hypothesis) and may also reflect the sender's condition (the condition dependence hypothesis). However,...
Three subspecies of Black-tailed Godwit share non-breeding sites in the world's largest river delta
March 2025
During the non-breeding season (September–April), Black-tailed Godwits (Limosa limosa) are commonly seen in coastal and inland wetlands of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta in Bangladesh. We hypothesize...
Avian hippocampus: Recent advances in anatomy and physiological functions
2024
The avian hippocampus, akin to its mammalian counterpart, plays a critical role in cognitive and physiological processes despite notable structural differences. Initially thought to be less developed,...
Correlates of avian extinction timing around the world since 1500 CE
2024
Avian extinctions have been relatively well documented in modern history, and in the past millennia, more bird species are known to have gone extinct than species in any other vertebrate class. We examined...
Step-by-step to success: Multi-stage learning driven robust audiovisual fusion network for fine-grained bird species classification
December 2025
Bird monitoring and protection are essential for maintaining biodiversity, and fine-grained bird classification has become a key focus in this field. Audio-visual modalities provide critical cues for...
Sri Lanka's laughingthrush: An ecological and phylogenetic assessment of a babbler confused for a laughingthrush
September 2025
The Ashy-headed Laughingthrush (Argya cinereifrons), a species endemic to Sri Lanka, has been historically considered a laughingthrush in the genus Garrulax. However, based on phylogenetic evidence,...
Chinese Blackbirds (Turdus mandarinus) mimic electric moped sounds with lower consistency and frequencies
June 2025
Passerine mimics often imitate various vocalizations from other bird species and incorporate these sounds into their song repertoires. While a few anecdotes reported that wild songbirds imitated human-associated...