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,...
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...
Photographs on social media and analysis of bird hunting in Poland
Available online 1 December 2025
Satellite tracking reveals a migratory divide and population-specific migratory strategies in White-naped Cranes
Available online 28 November 2025
Migratory divides, where individuals from distinct breeding populations within a species exhibit divergent migratory routes and strategies, play a critical role in shaping avian ecology and evolution....
No egg or nestling-retrieval behavior in a cavity-nesting cuckoo host
Available online 28 November 2025
The arms race between avian brood parasites and their hosts provides a classic model for studying coevolution. In one of the most widespread obligate brood parasites, the Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus),...
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....
The satellite tracking of Great Snipes from European Russia reveals low migratory connectivity
Available online 5 November 2025
Great Snipe (Gallinago media) is a shorebird which has a Near Threatened status on the global scale. However, little is known about its migration strategy from the breeding range in Russia. This study...
Birds' co-occurrence is mediated by diet, habitat type, and anthropogenic disturbances in Ghana's Central Region
September 2025
Understanding the fundamental drivers of large-scale species co-occurrence is a critical issue in ecology and conservation research. Here, we assessed foraging guilds, habitat type and disturbances...
Elevated extinction risk of low-elevation populations of two songbirds on the Taiwan island
September 2025
Prevailing concerns on mountainous biodiversity are concentrated on the impacts of climate change at higher elevations. However, the lower elevations are facing additional human disturbance and are...
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,...
Reconciling Bergmann's rule throughout the annual cycle in two congeneric large-bodied migratory waterbirds
September 2025
Bergmann's rule predicts that the larger of two homeotherm species differing only in size would occur at higher latitudes, or in cooler climates than the smaller, because of relative thermoregulatory...