Avian ResearchPub Date : 2025-08-19DOI: 10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100293
Xiaojia Zhu , Le Yang , Quanjian Tao , Xiran Wang , Ghulam Nabi , Fumin Lei , Xiaoping Yu , Dongming Li
{"title":"Canalization of globins in the adaptive evolution of birds","authors":"Xiaojia Zhu , Le Yang , Quanjian Tao , Xiran Wang , Ghulam Nabi , Fumin Lei , Xiaoping Yu , Dongming Li","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100293","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100293","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The globin superfamily, central to oxygen (O<sub>2</sub>) cascade dynamics, exemplifies how canalization—evolutionary stabilization of phenotypic traits—enables vertebrates to thrive in extreme environments. In birds, hemoglobins (Hbs) serve as a paradigm of this process, with structural and functional canalization underpinning their exceptional aerobic capacity and elevational diversification. Despite significant advances of globins in our understanding of avian aerobic adaptation, a comprehensive synthesis of functional diversity, molecular evolution, and structural innovation is essential to fully elucidate their canalized roles in O<sub>2</sub> homeostasis. Integrating perspectives on globin functional diversity and structural evolution, this review examines how chance (mutation/fixation biases) and contingency (historical genetic/epistatic constraints) shape Hb divergence and parallelism, thereby bridging molecular mechanisms with physiological adaptation in birds. We highlight how avian Hbs, canalized through compensatory substitutions and allosteric regulation, achieves a balance between evolutionary robustness and adaptive plasticity. However, critical gaps remain persist: the roles of understudied globins (e.g., neuroglobin, globin E) and the mechanisms of genetic assimilation in migratory taxa. We propose an integrative framework that incorporates ecological divergence (elevation, flight endurance), phylogenetic timescales, and systems biology to unravel how canalization directs adaptive compromise. By focusing on birds within the amniotes, this synthesis advances a cohesive model for vertebrate evolution, wherein canalized globins reconcile metabolic precision with ecological innovation. Ultimately, this review refines hypotheses of O<sub>2</sub> cascade evolution and calls for cross-disciplinary studies to decode the genetic and physiological architecture underlying adaptive canalization in extreme environments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 4","pages":"Article 100293"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144922997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Avian ResearchPub Date : 2025-08-16DOI: 10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100292
Xingmin Chen, Yanping Wang
{"title":"A systematic review of avian response to urbanization in China: Research trends, current insights, and future directions","authors":"Xingmin Chen, Yanping Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100292","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100292","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>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 through its high speed and large scale of urbanization, offering valuable research opportunities for avian ecology. However, a comprehensive review on how birds respond to urbanization in China is still lacking. Here, we systematically reviewed 274 studies published from 1962 to 2024 to determine the research trends, current insights, and future directions of avian response to urbanization in China. We synthesized research trends across four core avian response dimensions to urbanization—diversity, behavior, physiology, and life-history—and their applications in conservation strategy design. The number of publications in avian response to urbanization in China increased annually, and it is influenced by China's developing policies of urbanization. The results also showed an unbalanced geographical pattern of the publications, as the research preferences are relatively prevalent in the developed areas of eastern China. In contrast, there are insufficient studies in the emerging urbanizing areas in the western and northeastern China. Regarding the research contents, most existing studies are focusing on the patterns of bird diversity, while there are few studies on the underlying mechanisms, such as physiological adjustments and life-history strategies. In addition, passerines are the most frequent ones among the studied species. Integrating multidimensional urbanization indices and citizen science data are gradually becoming a new trend in recent years. Our study emphasizes that future studies should pay more attention to the response mechanism of birds in urbanizing processes, multidimensional and interdisciplinary studies, and the transformation of the research results into conservation practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 4","pages":"Article 100292"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144895923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The product of head height and head width is a strong predictor of brain mass in birds","authors":"Yuran Liu , Baisalbayeva Rakhima , Yidong Wei, Jinmei Liu, Wei Liang","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100291","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100291","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Animal behavioral studies are often combined with research concerning cognitive abilities. Larger brains usually mean more complex neural networks and advanced cognitive functions. By measuring the brain size of different individual animals, we can explore differences in behavioral complexity between populations or species. However, obtaining accurate measurements of brain size is challenging both in field and laboratory environments, especially for rare and endangered species. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop reliable methods for performing cranial brain mass. This study tests which external structures of the avian head can most accurately predict brain size. We selected five bird species from four orders, categorized external head measures into three types of parameters (direct, calculated and composite measurements), and analyzed these in relation to brain mass. The results showed that while head size can partially explain brain mass, the parameters of head height × head width were the most accurate predictors of brain mass in birds (90.4%). In addition, the positive correlation between endocranial volume and brain mass once again confirmed that avian endocranial volume can, to a certain extent, serve as a valid proxy for brain mass. Our study demonstrates that in the future we can more conveniently perform non-invasive measurements to better understand the relationship between bird brain size and behavior, ecology, and evolution.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 4","pages":"Article 100291"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144931737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Avian ResearchPub Date : 2025-08-12DOI: 10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100290
Dake Yin , Jiangping Yu , Romain Lorrillière , Jiangping Jin , Mingju E , Longru Jin , Haitao Wang
{"title":"Visual cues modulate nest defense behavior in Japanese Tits: Insights from the appearance, posture and size of snake dummies","authors":"Dake Yin , Jiangping Yu , Romain Lorrillière , Jiangping Jin , Mingju E , Longru Jin , Haitao Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100290","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100290","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Predator dummies are usually used to explore the impact of predator features on the anti-predator behavior of birds. Previous studies have shown that the morphology and behavior of aerial predators can signal different threat levels to birds. However, whether subtle changes in ground predator dummies cause changes in the nest defense behavior of parent birds is unclear. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether Japanese Tits (<em>Parus minor</em>) exhibit different nest defense behaviors in response to experimentally manipulated variations in the appearance, posture, and size of virtual snake proxies (common nest predators). During the incubation period, we observed the nest defense behaviors of the parent tits against taxidermized Siberian Ratsnakes (<em>Elaphe schrenckii</em>) with varied characteristics and rubber-made model snakes. The tits exhibited more intense responses to taxidermized large (body length about 120 cm) coiled ratsnakes than to large coiled model snakes. They exhibited weaker responses to taxidermized small (body length about 20 cm) coiled ratsnakes than to taxidermized small sinusoidal ratsnakes. In addition, they exhibited more intense responses to taxidermized large coiled ratsnakes than to taxidermized small coiled ratsnakes, and more intense responses to taxidermized small sinusoidal ratsnakes than to large model snakes. However, there was no difference in the response of tits to taxidermized small sinusoidal ratsnakes and taxidermized large coiled ratsnakes, or to taxidermized small coiled ratsnakes and model snakes. Thus, the presence of scales, a sinusoidal posture, and a large body size of snake dummies can induce more intense behavioral responses in Japanese Tits. We suggested that Japanese Tits can discriminate subtle differences in ground predator dummies of nests and exhibit different nest defense behaviors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 4","pages":"Article 100290"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144895922","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Avian ResearchPub Date : 2025-08-08DOI: 10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100288
Lijun Gao, Yueyao Wang, Zheng Li, Lu Dong
{"title":"Rapid male plumage evolution drives sexual dichromatism in Ficedula flycatchers","authors":"Lijun Gao, Yueyao Wang, Zheng Li, Lu Dong","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100288","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100288","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sexual dichromatism represents a major form of phenotypic differentiation between the sexes in birds, and its evolution is likely shaped by the interplay between sexual and natural selection. The genus <em>Ficedula</em>, widely distributed across Eurasia, exhibits pronounced interspecific variation in both sexual dichromatism and migratory behavior, making it an ideal study system for investigating the evolutionary patterns and drivers of avian sexual dichromatism. In this study, we conducted a phylogenetic comparative analysis of plumage complexity and sexual dichromatism across 32 <em>Ficedula</em> species. We further explored how life-history traits influence the evolution of sexual dichromatism. Our results reveal a strong positive correlation between male plumage complexity and the degree of sexual dichromatism, with males evolving plumage complexity at significantly faster rates than females. Migratory species exhibit significantly higher levels of dichromatism. Furthermore, compared to monochromatic species, sexually dichromatic species are characterized by higher latitudinal occurrence, broader geographic distributions, and greater flight capacity. These findings demonstrated how sexual and natural selection jointly drive evolution of sexual dichromatism in <em>Ficedula</em> within phylogenetic constraints, advancing our understanding of the evolutionary drivers of avian sexual dichromatism.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 4","pages":"Article 100288"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144903876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Avian ResearchPub Date : 2025-08-07DOI: 10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100289
Qihuan He, Xu Jiang, Yinuo Feng, Jie Shao, Xingchang Yang, Xueru Yang, Xinwei Tan, Yanping Wang
{"title":"Avian phylogenetic and functional diversity and their influencing factors in urban parks of Nanjing, China","authors":"Qihuan He, Xu Jiang, Yinuo Feng, Jie Shao, Xingchang Yang, Xueru Yang, Xinwei Tan, Yanping Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100289","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100289","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>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 focused on taxonomic diversity, with relatively less research on functional and phylogenetic diversity. In this study, we examined the phylogenetic and functional diversity and underlying influencing factors of bird communities in 37 urban parks in Nanjing, China. We conducted a systematic survey of bird communities in Nanjing urban parks and selected six park characteristics that are generally considered to affect bird diversity. Model selection based on corrected Akaike Information Criterion (AICc) and model averaging showed that park area, habitat diversity and building index (a proxy for the degree of urbanization) were significant factors affecting avian phylogenetic and functional diversity in Nanjing urban parks. Specifically, habitat diversity and park area were positively correlated with bird diversity, while the building index was negatively correlated with bird diversity. Moreover, the phylogenetic and functional structures of urban bird communities exhibited a clustered pattern, indicating that environmental filtering might play a role in shaping community composition. In addition, building index had certain impact on the construction of bird phylogenetic communities in urban parks. Our results suggest that expanding park areas, increasing habitat diversity and reducing building indexes may be effective measures to increase the avian phylogenetic and functional diversity in our system.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 4","pages":"Article 100289"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144841680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Avian ResearchPub Date : 2025-08-06DOI: 10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100286
Xueqi Zhao , Jiangping Yu , Jie Su , Manxi Lu , Chunguang Dong , Xiyu Wang , Haitao Wang
{"title":"Effects of individual and group factors on the social relationships of Budgerigars","authors":"Xueqi Zhao , Jiangping Yu , Jie Su , Manxi Lu , Chunguang Dong , Xiyu Wang , Haitao Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100286","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100286","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Social animals often form dynamic relationships with group members, which have been associated with increased social learning, survival and reproductive success. Social relationships can be shaped by both group and individual factors; however, few studies have addressed their combined impact. In this study, we aimed to examine whether group factors and individual factors jointly affect social relations. We selected Budgerigars (<em>Melopsittacus undulatus</em>) as the focal species to investigate the influence of sex, personality, and body length as well as sex ratio and group size on social relationships. The results showed that the birds in 3-individual groups had higher aggression network weighted degree values than those in 5-individual groups. Individuals within opposite-sex groups showed higher levels of aggressive and affiliative interactions than those in same-sex groups. Additionally, females attained higher social ranks despite exhibiting significantly lower aggression behaviors than males. Individuals with longer body lengths exhibited higher aggression network weighted degree values. Our results suggest that group factors primarily influence the social networks, while individual factors play important roles in shaping the social relationships.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 4","pages":"Article 100286"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144830168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Avian ResearchPub Date : 2025-08-05DOI: 10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100285
Joni E. Wright , Edward L. Braun , J. Gordon Burleigh , Rebecca T. Kimball
{"title":"Dynamic evolution of olfactory receptor genes in the Turkey Vulture and Black Vulture","authors":"Joni E. Wright , Edward L. Braun , J. Gordon Burleigh , Rebecca T. Kimball","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100285","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100285","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Olfactory receptors (ORs), the largest vertebrate multigene family, exhibit wide copy number variation among taxa, ranging from ∼100 to 4000. The ecological importance of smell has been suggested to positively correlate with OR gene number, though debate exists on whether the number of total ORs, functional ORs, or the percentage of pseudogenes matters most. While olfaction has been poorly studied in most birds, Turkey Vultures (<em>Cathartes aura</em>) demonstrate keen olfactory ability, capable of foraging using smell alone. In contrast, Black Vultures (<em>Coragyps atratus</em>) have been thought to primarily use vision to locate food. Comparison of the OR genes in these two New World vultures presents an opportunity to examine the dynamics of OR evolution in related avian species that may differ in olfactory abilities. Using a PCR and cloning approach with degenerate primers, we sampled the OR subgenome in Turkey and Black Vultures, as well as Red-tailed Hawks (<em>Buteo jamaicensis</em>) and the distantly related Chicken (<em>Gallus gallus</em>), neither of which are thought to use olfaction extensively. Our results indicate that Turkey Vultures have many more OR genes than Red-tailed Hawks or chickens. Surprisingly, Black Vultures had an intermediate number of OR genes. The number of OR genes we estimated in the Turkey Vulture was much greater than previously reported in studies that used short-read sequencing. Additionally, we found that OR genes from New World vultures and Red-tailed Hawks form clades that were distinct from the clade that included most chicken OR genes, indicating that chickens share few OR orthologs with New World vultures or hawks. As previously observed in other animal groups, pseudogenes appeared throughout all clades and their percentage varied among taxa. These findings suggest the OR gene family is highly dynamic, changing rapidly over evolutionary time, and that taxa may have distinct suites of ORs in their genomes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 4","pages":"Article 100285"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144830167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Avian ResearchPub Date : 2025-07-26DOI: 10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100281
Benjamin Golas , Diann J. Prosser , Andrew M. Ramey , Paul Link , Wayne E. Thogmartin
{"title":"Density dependence and weather drive dabbling duck spatiotemporal distributions and intercontinental migration","authors":"Benjamin Golas , Diann J. Prosser , Andrew M. Ramey , Paul Link , Wayne E. Thogmartin","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100281","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100281","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>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 avian influenza virus (HPAIV). Waterfowl migration has been implicated in regional and intercontinental HPAIV dispersal, and predictive capabilities of where and when HPAIV may be introduced to susceptible spillover hosts would facilitate biosecurity and mitigation efforts. To develop forecasts for HPAIV dispersal, an improved understanding of how individual birds interact with their environment and move on a landscape scale is required. Using an agent-based modeling approach, we integrated individual-scale energetics, species-specific morphology and behavior, and landscape-scale weather and habitat data in a mechanistic stochastic framework to simulate Mallard (<em>Anas platyrhynchos</em>) and Northern Pintail (<em>Anas acuta</em>) annual migration across the Northern Hemisphere. Our model recreated biologically realistic migratory patterns using a first principles approach to waterfowl ecology, behavior, and physiology. Conducting a limited structural sensitivity analysis comparing reduced models to eBird Status and Trends in reference to the full model, we identified density dependence as the main factor influencing spring migration and breeding distributions, and wind as the main factor influencing fall migration and overwintering distributions. We show evidence of weather patterns in Northeast Asia causing significant intercontinental pintail migration to North America. By linking individual energetics to landscape-scale processes, we identify key drivers of waterfowl migration while developing a predictive model responsive to daily weather patterns. This model paves the way for future waterfowl migration research predicting HPAIV transmission, climate change impacts, and oil spill effects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 4","pages":"Article 100281"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144779343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}