Avian Research最新文献

{"title":"Comparative analysis of female bubbling calls: Within- and between-species variation among the four species of Cuculus cuckoos","authors":"Sue-Jeong Jin ,&nbsp;Hae-Ni Kim ,&nbsp;Jun-Seo Go ,&nbsp;Myeong-Chan Cha ,&nbsp;Heesoo Lee ,&nbsp;Seongho Yun ,&nbsp;Jin-Won Lee","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100240","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100240","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In brood-parasitic <em>Cuculus</em> cuckoos, male vocalizations are species-specific and easily distinguishable, whereas female calls are remarkably similar across species, making species identification challenging. In this study, we examined the structural characteristics and variability of female bubbling calls among four <em>Cuculus</em> species (Common Cuckoo <em>C. canorus</em>, Oriental Cuckoo <em>C. optatus</em>, Indian Cuckoo <em>C. micropterus</em>, and Lesser Cuckoo <em>C. poliocephalus</em>) breeding in South Korea. Comprehensive acoustic analyses of seven call parameters, using recordings from 2021 to 2023, were conducted to quantify the characteristics of their calls and compare within- and between-individual variability across species. Significant differences were found across all call parameters, with the Common Cuckoo producing the highest number of notes and the Oriental Cuckoo the lowest-frequency calls. Despite these differences, the overall structure of the calls remained acoustically similar, with overlapping characteristics across species. Furthermore, female Common Cuckoos exhibited greater within-individual variability in their calls, while the other species showed higher between-individual variability, which may further complicate species identification based vocalization alone. These findings highlight the complexities of female vocalizations in <em>Cuculus</em> cuckoos and suggest that ecological, social, and evolutionary factors may contribute to this vocal variability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 2","pages":"Article 100240"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143687505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Impacts of free-ranging yaks on habitat occupancy and population density of a high-mountain rare pheasant species","authors":"Gaqie E ,&nbsp;Yuehong Cheng ,&nbsp;Panyan Yang ,&nbsp;Luhong Wang ,&nbsp;Mei Xiao ,&nbsp;Long Zhang ,&nbsp;Caiquan Zhou ,&nbsp;Pinjia Que ,&nbsp;Bin Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100238","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100238","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Free-ranging yak grazing is a regime specially adapted to high-elevation environments across the Pan-Tibetan Highlands, yet its impacts on alpine birds remain poorly understood. The Chinese Monal (<em>Lophophorus lhuysii</em>) is a rare pheasant species that serves as a representative and umbrella species for alpine meadow ecosystems in the mountains of Southwest China, and has long been regarded as threatened by free-ranging yaks. However, the actual impacts and specific mechanisms through which yak grazing influences Chinese Monal have not been empirically tested. Here, we conducted infrared camera monitoring in alpine meadows within the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China, from 2019 to 2022. We analyzed the effects of free-ranging yaks on habitat occupancy, activity pattern, and population density of the Chinese Monal using multispecies occupancy models, kernel density estimations, avoidance attraction ratios, and random encounter models. We found that interactions with yaks affect monal habitat occupancy in conjunction with other ecological factors. Specifically, the presence of yaks alters monals’ occupancy responses to variations in grass cover and elevation, causing monals to use habitats with lower grass cover and elevation more frequently. Additionally, the activity patterns of the Chinese Monal and yaks are significantly different, and the presence of yaks significantly prolongs the time until monals re-occupy the same habitats. As an outcome of the cumulative effects of spatial and temporal avoidance, the population density of the Chinese Monal negatively correlated with increasing grazing intensity. This study provides the first empirical evidence of the negative impacts of free-ranging yaks on the Chinese Monal and elucidates the underlying mechanisms, highlighting great risks to conservation of this vulnerable species. Our findings inform the optimization of grazing management that balances production with conservation. Strict control over yak numbers and grazing areas in critical habitats for Chinese Monal and other threatened species could be a feasible compromise to mitigate these pressures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 2","pages":"Article 100238"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143629185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Moving away from home: Early life movements and space use in juvenile Montagu’s Harriers (Circus pygargus) from central Italy","authors":"Giampiero Sammuri ,&nbsp;Guido Alari Esposito ,&nbsp;Giuseppe Anselmi ,&nbsp;Francesco Pezzo ,&nbsp;Vincenzo Rizzo Pinna ,&nbsp;Andrea Sforzi ,&nbsp;Flavio Monti","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100239","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100239","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Assessing individual differences and variability in animal movement patterns is essential to improve our understanding of the evolution and ontogeny of migratory strategies. In long-distance migratory species, fledged juveniles often rely on an extremely restricted time span to learn the essential skills for survival and to prepare for migration, possibly the most risky phase of their lives. Collecting detailed information on the dynamics of the movements during the crucial pre-migratory phase is hence essential to understand the solutions developed by migratory species in different environmental contexts. Here, we used high-resolution GPS/GSM transmitters to collect information on the movement ecology of seven juvenile Montagu's Harriers (<em>Circus pygargus</em>) born in central Italy, investigating their early life stages, namely the post-fledging dependence period (PFDP) and the pre-migratory phase (PMP), until autumn migration. After fledging, individuals showed high variability (both in space and time) in home range size, daily distances covered (6.88 ± 11.44 km/day), distance from the nest (1.45 ± 2.8 km) and PFDP length (23.3 ± 5.3 days). Residence time at the natal site significantly decreased, while time interval between revists in the natal area significantly increased, as the PFDP progressed. During the PMP, explored areas and distance from the nest (max value up to 320.8 km) varied among individuals, despite daily distances covered (27 ± 40 km/day) and time allocation between traveling (60.7%) and foraging (39.3%) were similar across individuals. The PMP lasted 38 ± 14 days. Land cover composition of foraging locations was mostly represented by agricultural lands (∼78.2%), though habitat use differed among individuals. More than 76% of such locations were outside protected areas. This individual-based tracking study represents a novel approach that improves previous knowledge based on field studies on the early life stages of the Montagu's Harrier. High inter-individual variability in movement patterns, broad-range exploratory movements and foraging locations outside the protected area network make the application of standard conservation measures difficult, raising concerns about the long-term preservation of this vulnerable migratory species in Italy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 2","pages":"Article 100239"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143687506","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Distinguishing between wild-caught and captive-bred Common Pheasant using methylation rate of skeletal muscle DNA","authors":"Wenhui Wang ,&nbsp;Lijun Lin ,&nbsp;Yue Ma ,&nbsp;Yan Cui ,&nbsp;Qi Zhang ,&nbsp;Jincheng Yang ,&nbsp;Yongheng Zhou ,&nbsp;Liangyu Cui ,&nbsp;Boyang Liu ,&nbsp;Chang Su ,&nbsp;Mengjia Yu ,&nbsp;Yuwei Gao ,&nbsp;Peng Gao ,&nbsp;Yujia Du ,&nbsp;Yu Zhou ,&nbsp;Elizabeth Kamili ,&nbsp;Shuhui Yang ,&nbsp;Yanchun Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100234","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100234","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Illegal hunting and trafficking of wildlife and their derivatives extort unprecedented population decline of relatively many species pushing them towards extinction. Notwithstanding contemporary counteracting interventions at international, regional, national and local levels, wildlife farming is advocated as an alternative approach to minimize pressure on wild populations. For wildlife farming to be an effective conservation tool, the integration of wildlife forensics is inevitable to allow distinction between captive-bred and wild-caught species. To this end, we analyzed methylation rates of skeletal muscle samples (pectoralis major, triceps brachii, gastrocnemius, biceps femoris, and neck muscles) from 60 captive-bred and 30 wild-caught Common Pheasant. A total of 13,507 differentially methylated regions were identified between five wild-caught and five captive-bred individuals through whole-genome methylation sequencing (WGBS). Based on the selected five methylation sites, <em>LOC116231076</em>, <em>LOC116242223</em>, <em>ATAD2B</em>, <em>EGFL6</em>, and <em>HS2ST</em>, quantitative detection technique was developed using methylation-sensitive high-resolution melting curve (MS-HRM) to measure methylation rates. The results showed significant differences in methylation rates at all differential sites between wild-caught and captive-bred individuals (|<em>t</em>| = 0.67–33.10, <em>P</em> = 0.000–0.042). The discrimination accuracy rate of each locus was highest in the gastrocnemius muscle and lowest in the neck muscle. The discrimination accuracy rate on <em>LOC116231076</em>, <em>LOC116242223</em>, <em>ATAD2B</em>, <em>EGFL6</em>, and <em>HS2ST</em> methylation sites for gastrocnemius muscle was 64.98%, 100.00%, 68.54%, 63.79%, and 63.70%, respectively; and for neck muscle it was 67.42%, 68.06%, 83.61%, 65.04%, and 68.85%, respectively. The united discrimination accuracy rate of the five loci were 100.00% for gastrocnemius muscle, 99.78% for biceps femoris muscle, 97.52% for pectoralis major muscle, 93.96% for triceps brachii muscle, and 91.63% for neck muscle, respectively. The panel also revealed excellent repeatability, reproducibility, sensitivity and universality to mammals and avian species. This study establishes an effective, accurate and low-cost identification technology for the identification of wild and farmed Common Pheasant, and also provides a reference for the development of identification methods for other species.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 2","pages":"Article 100234"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143643988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluation of antimicrobial resistance and virulence characteristics in Escherichia coli and Proteus mirabilis isolates from dead Crested Ibis embryos at the artificial breeding base","authors":"Gang Shu ,&nbsp;Lu Qu ,&nbsp;Weiyi Yang ,&nbsp;Ziqin Lin ,&nbsp;Hanqian Dong ,&nbsp;Danqin Li ,&nbsp;Haiqiong Yang ,&nbsp;Wei Zhang ,&nbsp;Haohuan Li ,&nbsp;Funeng Xu ,&nbsp;Hualin Fu ,&nbsp;Juchun Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100237","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100237","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Bacterial infections of avian embryos can lead to an increase in embryo mortality, and the proliferation of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria aggravates the situation. A low hatching rate also poses a challenge to the population of artificially bred Crested Ibises (<em>Nipponia nippon</em>). This study aims to determine the potential association between bacterial infection and the death of Crested Ibis embryos, and whether there is convergence between antimicrobial resistance and virulence in strain. In this study, 13 <em>Escherichia coli</em> and 12 <em>Proteus mirabilis</em> isolates were recovered from dead Crested Ibis embryos. The pathogenicity examination confirmed the pathogenicity of all isolates, and multiple virulence genes detected by PCR-sequencing demonstrated the presence of <em>irp2</em> and <em>iucD</em> (100%), <em>fimC</em> and <em>iss</em> (92.31%) in <em>E. coli</em>, and <em>ucaA</em> (58.33%) in <em>P. mirabilis</em>. Antimicrobial susceptibility test demonstrated that isolates were mainly resistant to amoxicillin (<em>E. coli</em>: 76.92%, <em>P. mirabilis</em>: 91.67%), cefazolin (<em>E. coli</em>: 76.92%, <em>P. mirabilis</em>: 91.67%), oxytetracycline (<em>E. coli</em>: 92.31%, <em>P. mirabilis</em>: 75.00%) and sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim (<em>E. coli</em>: 53.85%, <em>P. mirabilis</em>: 33.33%), and more than 30% of isolates showed multidrug-resistance (MDR). Further analyses detected extended-spectrum <em>β</em>-lactamase (ESBL) genes, of which <em>bla</em>_TEM-1 (<em>E. coli</em>: 100%, <em>P. mirabilis</em>: 100%) had the highest frequency, followed by the <em>bla</em>_CTX-M-55 (<em>E. coli</em>: 92.31%, <em>P. mirabilis</em>: 50%), <em>bla</em>_CTX-M-14 (<em>E. coli</em>: 76.92%, <em>P. mirabilis</em>: 33.33%), <em>bla</em>_CTX-M-65 (<em>E. coli</em>: 15.38%, <em>P. mirabilis</em>: 16.67%), and all isolates were negative for <em>bla</em>_SHV and <em>bla</em>_OXA. Pearson's correlation analysis showed a positive correlation between the presence of <em>β</em>-lactam resistance and ESBL genes, while mainly negative correlations were observed between the presence of ESBL genes and virulence genes. Furthermore, the conjugation experiment and PFGE revealed that the isolates were primarily polyclonal, and there was horizontal transfer of resistance or virulence genes by plasmids. Based on the results, <em>E. coli</em> and <em>P. mirabilis</em> were responsible for embryonic mortality of the ibises in this study. The co-presence and co-transfer of ESBL genes and virulence genes can pose a potential threat to the health of the Crested Ibis, and measures such as prudent use of antimicrobials, and constant surveillance of resistance and pathogenicity, must be implemented at the Crested Ibis breeding base.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 2","pages":"Article 100237"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143687929","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"eDNA enhances detection efficiency but reveals lower waterbird diversity: A comparison with point counting method","authors":"Hongming Shuai ,&nbsp;Xiaoru Liu ,&nbsp;Yigui Zhang,&nbsp;Yuqi Sun,&nbsp;Hao Li,&nbsp;Zhongqiu Li","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100236","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100236","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Environmental DNA (eDNA) methods have emerged as a promising tool for studying a broad spectrum of biological taxa. However, metabarcoding studies of avian biodiversity using eDNA have received little attention. In this study, we compared waterbird biodiversity derived from eDNA metabarcoding with that obtained from traditional point counting surveys at 23 sites in Tai Lake of eastern China and evaluated the accuracy of eDNA metabarcoding for waterbird community studies. The point counting method recorded a higher total number of waterbird species (22) compared to the eDNA technique (16). While eDNA achieved a 74.5% detection rate for waterbird species and was able to identify a significantly greater number of species (12.48 ± 1.97) at each sampling site than point counting method (6.13 ± 2.69), particularly highlighting several rare and elusive species, it failed to detect some species commonly observed by the point counting method. The alpha diversity analysis revealed no significant differences in waterbird diversity between the eDNA method and the point counting method, except that the eDNA method exhibited lower Pielou evenness. Waterbird eDNA sequencing abundance correlated significantly with species occurrence, whereas Spearman's analysis indicated no significant difference between eDNA sequence abundance and species abundance from the point counting method. eDNA method detected no significant difference in waterbird composition between sampling sites, while the point counting method revealed significant differences. Consequently, eDNA is an effective complementary tool for assessing the diversity of wintering waterbirds in lakes, though it is unable to capture the full diversity of waterbird communities. It is crucial to develop sampling strategies that comprehensively monitor species composition and integrate eDNA with traditional survey methods for accurate evaluation of community structure.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 2","pages":"Article 100236"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143687508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A review of eDNA technology in avian monitoring: Current status, challenges and future perspectives","authors":"Ying Ke ,&nbsp;Tong Liu ,&nbsp;Chenglong Han ,&nbsp;Xue Yu ,&nbsp;Jinmei Wang ,&nbsp;Laixing Ding ,&nbsp;Hongliang Pan ,&nbsp;Xunqiang Mo ,&nbsp;Xueqiang Lu","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100235","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100235","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>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 extensive application in various ecological studies, such as conservation, invasion biology, biomonitoring and biodiversity survey assessment, its use in avian monitoring remains in its infancy. This review critically examines the potential and limitations of eDNA technology for avian monitoring, focusing on current advancements and ongoing challenges in this emerging field. Water and air are the primary environmental media for collecting avian eDNA, although other sources like spider webs and plant flowers have been explored as well. Notably, airborne eDNA has been reported to capture the highest diversity of avian species. While avian eDNA technology has shown promise for monitoring rare and endangered species and assessing avian diversity, significant challenges remain, particularly in sampling strategies, DNA extraction methodology, primer selection, and ascertain abundance. Additionally, we discussed the factors influencing the production, transportation, and degradation of avian eDNA in the environment. Finally, we suggested future research directions, including optimizing sampling strategies, developing avian-specific universal primers, expanding avian DNA barcode databases, enhancing eDNA detectability, and integrating environmental RNA (eRNA) and eDNA approaches.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 2","pages":"Article 100235"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143601148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Shallow water habitats provide high-quality foraging environments for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper at a critical staging site","authors":"Lili Sun ,&nbsp;Hongyan Yang ,&nbsp;Xiuyuan Lu ,&nbsp;Ting Fu ,&nbsp;Jia Guo ,&nbsp;Sicheng Ren ,&nbsp;Waner Liang ,&nbsp;Qing Chen ,&nbsp;Dongming Li ,&nbsp;Theunis Piersma ,&nbsp;Nicola Crockford ,&nbsp;Yifei Jia ,&nbsp;Guangchun Lei","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100233","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100233","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Abundant food supply is crucial for the survival of long-distance migratory birds. The continued population decline of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper (<em>Calidris pygmeae</em>), a critically endangered shorebird, is primarily attributed to habitat loss and degradation. However, significant gaps remain in research on their diet and foraging habitat selection, limiting effective conservation and restoration efforts. In this study, we investigated the composition of macrobenthic communities, analyzing habitat and prey selection at the main foraging area of SBS in Tiaozini, Jiangsu Province of eastern China—their most critical staging site during southward migration. Our findings revealed 25 species of macrobenthos in foraging areas, with mobile epibenthos comprising the largest group by biomass, accounting for 73%, and having higher density and biomass nearshore. Observations of foraging Spoon-billed Sandpiper individuals indicated that shallow water habitats were their preferred foraging environments, where mobile epibenthos, which thrive in these habitats after the tide recedes, made up 81% of their biomass intake. We propose that shallow water habitats in intertidal mudflats serve as essential refuges for mobile epibenthos after tidal retreat, thereby providing Spoon-billed Sandpipers with access to high-quality food resources. Habitat protection efforts should prioritize habitats harboring extensive microhabitats with shallow water, especially the nearshore area, and further research is needed to explore the mechanisms underlying the formation of these microhabitats, with the ultimate goal of restoring more high-quality habitats for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 2","pages":"Article 100233"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143577059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"DFEFM: Fusing frequency correlation and mel features for robust edge bird audio detection","authors":"Yingqi Wang ,&nbsp;Luyang Zhang ,&nbsp;Jiangjian Xie ,&nbsp;Junguo Zhang ,&nbsp;Rui Zhu","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100232","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100232","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) technology is increasingly becoming one of the mainstream methods for bird monitoring. However, detecting bird audio within complex natural acoustic environments using PAM devices remains a significant challenge. To enhance the accuracy (ACC) of bird audio detection (BAD) and reduce both false negatives and false positives, this study proposes a BAD method based on a Dual-Feature Enhancement Fusion Model (DFEFM). This method incorporates per-channel energy normalization (PCEN) to suppress noise in the input audio and utilizes mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) and frequency correlation matrices (FCM) as input features. It achieves deep feature-level fusion of MFCC and FCM on the channel dimension through two independent multi-layer convolutional network branches, and further integrates Spatial and Channel Synergistic Attention (SCSA) and Multi-Head Attention (MHA) modules to enhance the fusion effect of the aforementioned two deep features. Experimental results on the DCASE2018 BAD dataset show that our proposed method achieved an ACC of 91.4% and an AUC value of 0.963, with false negative and false positive rates of 11.36% and 7.40%, respectively, surpassing existing methods. The method also demonstrated detection ACC above 92% and AUC values above 0.987 on datasets from three sites of different natural scenes in Beijing. Testing on the NVIDIA Jetson Nano indicated that the method achieved an ACC of 89.48% when processing an average of 10 s of audio, with a response time of only 0.557 s, showing excellent processing efficiency. This study provides an effective method for filtering non-bird vocalization audio in bird vocalization monitoring devices, which helps to save edge storage and information transmission costs, and has significant application value for wild bird monitoring and ecological research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 2","pages":"Article 100232"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143577258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Chinese Blackbirds (Turdus mandarinus) mimic electric moped sounds with lower consistency and frequencies","authors":"Changjian Fu ,&nbsp;Vishal Kumar Prasad ,&nbsp;Xiaochun Wang ,&nbsp;Zhongqiu Li","doi":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100231","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100231","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>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 sounds, besides captive parrots and songbirds, systemic and quantitative studies on human-made sound mimicry in wild birds remain scarce. In this study, we investigated the mimetic accuracy and consistency of electric moped sounds imitated by an urban bird, the Chinese Blackbird (<em>Turdus mandarinus</em>). We found that: (1) Only one type of electric moped sound was imitated, i.e., 13 of 26 males mimicked the first part of the antitheft alarm, a phrase containing a series of identical notes. (2) The mimicry produced by male Chinese Blackbirds had fewer notes and lower consistency within phrases compared to the model alarms. (3) The mimicry of male Chinese Blackbirds was imperfect, i.e., most of the acoustic parameters differed from the model alarms. Additionally, mimetic notes were lower in frequency than the models. Mimetic notes from two areas were also different in acoustic structures, suggesting Chinese Blackbirds might learn mimicry mainly from conspecific neighbors within each area respectively rather than electric mopeds, namely the secondary mimicry. Imperfect mimicry of human-made sounds could result from cost and physical constraints, associated with high consistency, frequency, and repetitions. Consequently, Chinese Blackbirds copied a simplified version of electric moped alarms. We recommend further attention to mimic species inhabiting urban ecosystems to better understand vocal mimicry's adaptation to ongoing urbanization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51311,"journal":{"name":"Avian Research","volume":"16 2","pages":"Article 100231"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143510123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}