Canalization of globins in the adaptive evolution of birds
December 2025
The globin superfamily, central to oxygen (O2) cascade dynamics, exemplifies how canalization—evolutionary stabilization of phenotypic traits—enables vertebrates to thrive in extreme environments. In...
Escape behaviors of the Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) across China: Northern populations are bolder than southern populations
December 2025
Urbanization has significantly altered the habitat structure and behavioral patterns of animals. In urban environments with frequent human disturbances, animals may undergo adaptive adjustments in their...
Importance of surrounding landscape features in explaining wintering waterbird diversity and community assembly in Jiangsu's inland lake wetlands
December 2025
As one of the important wintering areas along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway, wetlands in the Yangtze River floodplain face threats from land-use changes, yet its effects on wintering waterbirds...
Metagenomic insights into the geographic divergence and functional adaptation of gut microbiota in the endangered Scaly-sided Merganser (Mergus squamatus)
December 2025
Investigating geographical variation and functional adaptation of gut microbiomes in endangered species is an emerging field in conservation biology. Here, we investigated the endangered waterbird,...
Swan Project promotes citizen science initiative through a public bird migration tracking
December 2025
Phylogenetic relatedness overshadows acoustic similarity to regulate responses toward unfamiliar mobbing calls in Masked Laughingthrushes
December 2025
Recognition of heterospecific mobbing calls can occur through both innate and learned mechanisms, with the former often explained by two main hypotheses: the acoustic similarity hypothesis, which emphasizes...
Effects of night lighting on avian cognitive function: Mechanisms involving neurodegeneration, metabolic dysregulation and neuroinflammatory responses
December 2025
The rapid expansion of urbanization has led to widespread exposure of wild birds to intensive light at night (LAN). While previous studies have established LAN-induced cognitive impairment in birds,...
Modeling the effects of urban park 3D environmental features on bird diversity with interpretable machine learning: A case study of Harbin, northeastern China
December 2025
Urban parks are essential habitats for birds in densely built environments. However, most studies focus only on horizontal features, overlooking the role of integrated vertical structures. Using bird...
Parental phenotypes and breeding performance: a review of non-experimental investigation in well-studied Western palearctic tits and flycatchers
December 2025
Numerous hypotheses predict associations between phenotype-associated breeder traits and reproductive success. In secondary cavity-nesting passerine birds, which have been investigated most, up to more...
How many birds are there in Guangdong Province, China?
December 2025
Estimating bird abundance is key to assess threats, and to prioritize conservation actions. However, few studies focus on this topic, particularly in developing countries, which may hamper conservation...
Waterbird image recognition using lightweight deep learning in wetland environment
December 2025
Wetland waterbirds serve as key ecological indicators for assessing habitat quality and biodiversity. Accurate identification of waterbird species is a cornerstone of long-term ecological monitoring....
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)...
Impacts of prolonged dry season and artificial food supply on the wintering spatial distribution of Siberian Cranes: Implications for conservation
December 2025
Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake, is a critical wintering ground for most of the global Siberian Crane (Grus leucogeranus) population. However, increasingly prolonged dry seasons have degraded...
Chinese provincial-level new records for 96 resident bird species reveal poleward range shifts
December 2025
Anthropogenic climate change is altering species distributions globally. While species distributions are expected to shift to higher latitudes and elevations under global warming, empirical evidence...
The predictable HPAI H5 outbreaks in European wild birds
December 2025
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5 viruses have caused widespread mortality in wild birds and poultry, with increasing spillover risk into mammals. The recently dominant clade 2.3.4.4b has...
Spatiotemporal dynamics of migratory shorebird populations in Korean coastal wetlands within the East Asian–Australasian Flyway
Available online 5 December 2025
Shorebirds migrate long-distances along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway (EAAF), exhibiting distinct spatiotemporal fluctuations in population dynamics. Because of habitat degradation and population...
Cell-autonomous determination of sex dimorphism in neuromodulation of a gynandromorphic Zebra Finch
Available online 4 December 2025
Gynandromorphs, rare in vertebrates, exhibit distinct sex-determining gene expression on each side of the body despite sharing a uniform hormonal environment. This provides a unique opportunity to investigate...
Effects of photoperiod on basal metabolism and substrate metabolism in Zebra Finches
Available online 3 December 2025
Photoperiod serves as an essential environmental cue that facilitates seasonal acclimatization and thermoregulation in birds. However, its effects on basal and substrate metabolism in Zebra Finches...
Photographs on social media and analysis of bird hunting in Poland
Available online 1 December 2025
SDNet: A self-supervised bird recognition method based on large language models and diffusion models for improving long-term bird monitoring
Available online 26 November 2025
The collection and annotation of large-scale bird datasets are resource-intensive and time-consuming processes that significantly limit the scalability and accuracy of biodiversity monitoring systems....
Testing urban edge effects: Nest predation rates are higher in areas further from the boundary of a suburban park
September 2025
Urban green spaces and parks offer opportunities for retaining and increasing bird richness, diversity, and species abundance. However, urbanisation influences predator–prey interactions, leading to...
Climatic, topographic, and local-scale variables differently shape bird communities in urban streets and parks
September 2025
Green cover and human disturbance are important local factors shaping urban bird communities, while climatic and topographic variables can be important when analyzing cities in different biomes. However,...