Biparental incubation emerges from the balance between cooperation and conflict. Because only one parent can sit on the nest at a time, any environment-linked change in one parent's schedule compels a reallocation by the partner. Yet most field studies collapse incubation data to daily totals and rarely model continuous 24-h, sex-specific rhythms, masking how environmental context reshapes between-parent dynamics. We used minute-resolution incubation records (13,632 nest-hours from 45 nests) to examine temporal and spatial variations in incubation by Kentish Plovers (Anarhynchus alexandrinus) breeding in northern Bohai Bay, China. By pairing daily summaries with cosinor-based models of sex-specific hourly incubation, we revealed context-dependent diel timing shifts that coarser methods missed. Consistent with previous work, we found females dominated daytime incubation and males at night, yielding female-biased daily totals. Hourly analyses, however, revealed context-dependent retiming in our study. As season warmed, males increased midday attendance but delayed the onset of their night shift; while female attendance declined, producing a more even division between parents with male daily attendance remaining unchanged. Across habitats, total attendance was similar, but in rocky sites, where nocturnal predation was higher, males reallocated effort from night to day and exceeded females in daily totals. Increased male daytime involvement was accompanied by more frequent changeovers, which were more responsive to environmental context than daily attendance. These findings show that environmental variation primarily reorganises when parents incubate rather than simply how much they incubate, and that between-parent dynamics are best examined at hourly scales. Hourly sex-specific analyses thus provide a clearer bridge between environmental context and parental decision-making—insights that matter for forecasting reproductive outcomes under warming climates and changing predator communities.

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 (Lophophorus lhuysii) 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.

Aim:Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding serves as a significant urban park green space and an important habitat for avian species within urban ecosystems and migratory bird flyways.This study aims to provide foundational data and a scientific basis for the conservation of urban ecosystems and avian diversity by understanding the composition of bird species in this area. Methods:This study comprehensively reviewed the records of bird species diversity in this area since 1993,using data from transect surveys,bird ringing,literature,and citizen science contributions. Results:A total 262 bird species,representing 16 orders,56 families,and 154 genera,have been recorded at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.These species account for 45.4％of the total bird species in Chengdu City(n=577),placing the base among the top urban green spaces nationwide in terms of avian diversity.Notably,the base has documented three Class Ⅰ species of state key protected wild birds:Aythya baeri,Clanga clanga,and Emberiza aureola.Additionally,31 Class Ⅱ species of state key protected wild birds,including Otus sunia,Accipiter trivirgatus,Emberiza siemsseni,and others have been recorded.Compared to the avian checklist in historical records,the current checklist includes 95 newly recorded bird species,11 species of which are state key protected wild birds.Aythya baeri was recorded in the Swan Lake of Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. Conclusions:Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding exhibits significant avian diversity.Employing various survey methods can yield a more comprehensive bird species inventory,which is crucial for understanding the basic characteristics of urban ecosystems.

AimUnderstanding the ecological determinants of interspecific achromatic (light-to-dark) plumage variation in birds is crucial yet challenging due to the complex interplay of climatic, habitat-related, and morphological influences. This study aimed to disentangle the effects of temperature, precipitation, habitat openness, body mass and hand-wing index (HWI, a widely used single-parameter proxy for the extent to which a species relies on flight) on shaping achromatic plumage variation among bird species.LocationGlobal.Time PeriodContemporary.Major Taxa StudiedBirds.MethodsBased on data from over 8000 sessile bird species globally, we employed phylogenetic linear regressions to account for achromatic plumage colour in relation to temperature, precipitation, habitat openness, body mass and HWI, while correcting for phylogenetic non-independence between species. Furthermore, we conducted phylogenetic path analyses to decompose direct from indirect effects.ResultsWe found that temperature, precipitation, habitat openness and body mass exerted separate but interactive effects on the variation in achromatic colour across species. Species inhabiting cold, wet or densely vegetated environments were darker coloured, while smaller species were lighter. Darker plumage was more strongly related to higher precipitation in colder regions for nocturnal species. For diurnal species, darker plumage was more closely associated with higher precipitation in more open habitats, whereas lighter plumage was more linked to lower mass in denser habitats. Noteworthy was the identification of a substantial correlation between achromatic colour and HWI. Diurnal species that are more aerial were lighter. Conversely, nocturnal flyers, especially females, tended to be darker.Main ConclusionsThe findings highlight the multifaceted nature of plumage coloration evolution, with adaptations for thermal efficiency, crypsis, signalling, waterproofing or protection against bacteria. However, the variable relative importance of these factors among groups emphasizes the significance of each factor in different contexts.

Speciation in the face of gene flow is usually associated with a heterogeneous genomic landscape of divergence in nascent species pairs. However, multiple factors, such as divergent selection and local recombination rate variation, can influence the formation of these genomic islands. Examination of the genomic landscapes of species pairs that are still in the early stages of speciation provides an insight into this conundrum. In this study, population genomic analyses were undertaken using a wide range of sampling and whole-genome resequencing data from 96 unrelated individuals of Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) and white-faced plover (Charadrius dealbatus). We suggest that the two species exhibit varying levels of population admixture along the Chinese coast and on the Taiwan Island. Genome-wide analyses for introgression indicate that ancient introgression had occurred in Taiwan population, and gene flow is still ongoing in mainland coastal populations. Furthermore, we identified a few genomic regions with significant levels of interspecific differentiation and local recombination suppression, which contain several genes potentially associated with disease resistance, coloration, and regulation of plumage molting and thus may be relevant to the phenotypic and ecological divergence of the two nascent species. Overall, our findings suggest that divergent selection in low recombination regions may be a main force in shaping the genomic islands in two incipient shorebird species.

As an endangered species, protecting and identifying individual giant pandas has always been a focus. However, traditional methods based on feces and molecular biology have inherent limitations. With the progress of deep learning, image analysis methods can deliver good results, but they rely on high-quality frontal facial images, which are challenging to acquire in the wild. Furthermore, these approaches have neglected the fact that a substantial portion of data from the wild is predominantly in the form of video, and have inadequately exploited the temporal information. Therefore, we apply gait recognition to identify individual giant pandas. By examining the unique walking patterns of individuals in the video, gait recognition allows accurate identification from various angles, long ranges, and without subject cooperation. This makes it ideal to identify wild individual giant pandas, but it also introduces new challenges, such as quadrupeds having more complex body gestures compared to humans, and the generally lower image quality taken by cameras in the wild. To tackle issues in natural environments, we design ReconGait, a giant panda gait recognition model capable of aligning multi-view images and restoring low-quality regions effectively. Experiments shows state-of-the-art results, proving the effectiveness of using gait analysis for individual giant panda identification. Through our work, we strive to contribute significantly to the preservation of this rare species and set a precedent for the integration of gait recognition in wildlife conservation efforts.

Bills and legs are two vital appendages for birds, and they exhibit huge interspecific variation in form and function, yet no study has examined the global predictors of this variation. This study examined global gradients in the relative lengths of bird bills and tarsi (i.e. exposed leg parts) to body size across non-migratory birds, while accounting for phylogeny. We found that relative bill length and tarsus length were related to diet, habitat density, latitude, annual mean temperature, temperature variability and hand–wing index (HWI), a proxy for birds' flight efficiency. Among these factors, diet played a primary role in predicting bill length, with nectar-feeding pollinators, vertivores, invertivores and omnivores having longer bills; HWI emerged as the predominant predictor of tarsus length, wherein species with higher HWI had shorter tarsi. However, the effects of these factors differed between passerines and non-passerines, with some temperature-related effects exhibiting opposite trends between these two groups. Our findings highlight the compromise in adaptations for feeding, thermoregulation and flight performance between the two distinct appendages.

AbstractProtected areas provide essential habitats for wildlife by conserving natural and semi‐natural habitats and reducing human disturbance. However, whether breeding birds vulnerable to nest predation can benefit from strict land management in the protected area is unclear. Here, we compare the nesting performance of two groups of a ground‐nesting shorebird, the Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus), in the protected area (Liaohekou Natural Reserve, hereinafter PA), and the control non‐protected area (non‐PA) around the Liaohekou Natural Reserve, in the north of the Yellow Sea, China, and identify which environmental factors, such as nesting habitat and nest materials, influence the daily nest survival rate (DSR). We found similar nesting habitats in both study areas, dominated by bare land or Suaeda salsa grassland. However, DSR was lower in PA (0.91 ± 0.01) than in non‐PA (0.97 ± 0.01). Kentish plovers nesting in areas with vegetation cover experienced lower DSR than in bare lands in both areas, and nests built with materials of S. salsa sticks had the lowest DSR in the bare land. Data from infrared cameras confirmed relatively higher predator abundances and nest predation rates by nocturnal mammals, such as Eurasian badgers (Meles meles), in PA than in non‐PA, and this pattern was especially evident for plover nests located in S. salsa grassland. Our results suggest that Liaohekou Natural Reserve protected area may not necessarily provide safe nesting sites for Kentish plovers due to the abundance of generalist mammal nest predators. However, the PA includes about 80% of the nests from both locations. This means the contribution of the total number of successful nests continues to be much higher within PA, with the benefit for the species that this brings in terms of conservation. The variation and mechanisms underlying differences in the nest predator communities of PA and non‐PA deserve further study.

彩鹮Plegadis falcinellus是一种大型涉禽,隶属于鹈形目Pelecaniformes鹮科Threskiornithidae,广泛分布于欧洲南部、非洲、美洲中部、亚洲东南部和澳大利亚等地区(del Hoyo et al.,1992;郑光美,2021).彩鹮国内分布于华北、华中、华南、西南的大部分地区,以及内蒙古东部、新疆、西藏的部分地区(郑光美,2023),2021年被提升为国家一级重点保护野生动物.彩鹮在我国曾一度绝迹70年,在《中国脊椎动物红色名录》中被评估为数据缺乏(DD)物种(蒋志刚等,2016).自2009年在四川邛海被重新记录到之后(阙品甲等,2020),十余年来彩鹮在云南、江西、内蒙古和西藏等均有记录,但多为零星个体(陈丽霞等,2012;赵雪冰等,2013;卢萍等,2017;杨乐等,2019).

Summary The Wood Snipe Gallinago nemoricola is one of the least known shorebird species, and its habitat associations are very poorly understood. Here we provide the first assessment of the habitat use of the Wood Snipe during the breeding season. Between May and July 2021 at a 4-km2 alpine meadow in Sichuan province, China, we conducted population surveys and behavioural observations to identify sites where breeding Wood Snipe occurred and foraged. We quantified the habitat characteristics and food resource availability of these sites and compared them with randomly selected “background” sites. Comparison between 34 occurrence sites and 25 background sites indicated that during the breeding season, Wood Snipes are not distributed evenly across alpine meadow habitats, but preferred habitats in the lower part (3,378–3,624 m) of the alpine meadow with intermediate levels of soil moisture. In addition, comparison between 17 foraging sites and 24 background sites showed that the Wood Snipe tended to forage at sites with higher soil fauna abundance. We found weak evidence for denser vegetation cover at its height and no evidence for other biotic habitat variables such as vegetation composition or other abiotic habitat variables such as slope, soil penetrability, or disturbance level to influence Wood Snipe habitat associations. Our results suggest that the actual distribution range of the Wood Snipe during the breeding season may be smaller than expected from the extent of apparently suitable habitat. We advise caution in evaluating the potential habitat availability and distribution of the Wood Snipe, and call for further research to better understand the ecology of this rare species to inform its conservation.

Male ornamentation is usually costly and may show trades-offs with other life-history traits such as paternal care, which can subsequently affect female preference. Studies on female mate choice have mostly examined how mate-choice cues differ in their expression or ability to be detected in different environmental contexts. However, less focus has been placed on examining how external forces affect female preferences. The purpose of this study was to explore how parental investment strategy and mate choice were mediated by ambient temperature. Specifically, we examined how male ornamentation characteristics and subsequent female incubation investment were impacted by ambient temperature in four plover populations that were breeding across an environmental gradient. We discovered that larger males had more ornamented plumage in warmer conditions, and they were favored by larger females who invested an elevated time into incubation. In contrast, in cooler conditions, males’ body size and the color of their ornaments were inversely associated, and females showed weak preference for males with more colorful ornaments. These results imply that female preference for male ornament can change in response to ambient temperature and demonstrate that female preference for male ornamentation may be limited in harsher conditions with higher parental care expenses.

The Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrinus Linnaeus 1758 is a common shorebird in Eurasia and North Africa that breeds in a variety of habitats, exhibits different extents of migratory behaviour and is an emerging model species of breeding system evolution. Here we focus on the resident population found across the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka, and re‐evaluate its systematic status based on phenotypic and genetic distinctiveness from a sympatric migrant, Charadrius alexandrinus sensu stricto , and the recently elevated closely related Charadrius dealbatus in East Asia. We show that the Sri Lankan and South Indian (South Asian) population differs in body size, moulting pattern and plumage coloration from C. alexandrinus and C. dealbatus . Furthermore, based on two mitochondrial, two sex‐linked and 11 autosomal microsatellite markers from 378 individuals, we show that these three taxa have moderate genetic differentiation ( F st 0.078–0.096). The South Asian taxon is sister to the clade of C. alexandrinus sensu stricto and C. dealbatus with an estimated divergence time of 1.19 million years ago. We also examined ornithological records of major museum collections in Asia, Europe and North America for the south Asian taxon to evaluate its biogeographical and taxonomic status. Based on differences in genotype, phenotype, allochronic migratory pattern and breeding range, we resurrect the most suitable synonym, Charadrius alexandrinus seebohmi Hartert and Jackson, 1915, and elevate the nomen to the species level with the proposed English name ‘Hanuman Plover’ .

Global biodiversity is facing serious threats. However, knowledge of the genomic consequences of recent rapid population declines of wild organisms is limited. Do populations experiencing recent rapid population decline have the same genomic status as wild populations that experience long-term declines? Yellow-breasted Bunting (Emberiza aureola) is a critically endangered species that has been experiencing a recent rapid population decline. To answer the question, we assembled and annotated the whole genome of Yellow-breasted Bunting. Furthermore, we found high genetic diversity, low linkage disequilibrium, and low proportion of long runs of homozygosity in Yellow-breasted Bunting, suggesting that the populations following recent rapid declines have different genomic statuses from the population that experienced long-term population decline.

Males and females often exhibit differences in behaviour, life histories, and ecology, many of which are typically reflected in their brains. Neuronal protection and maintenance include complex processes led by the microglia, which also interacts with metabolites such as hormones or immune components. Despite increasing interest in sex-specific brain function in laboratory animals, the significance of sex-specific immune activation in the brain of wild animals along with the variables that could affect it is widely lacking. Here, we use the Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) to study sex differences in expression of immune genes in the brain of adult males and females, in two wild populations breeding in contrasting habitats: a coastal sea-level population and a high-altitude inland population in China. Our analysis yielded 379 genes associated with immune function. We show a significant male-biased immune gene upregulation. Immune gene expression in the brain did not differ in upregulation between the coastal and inland populations. We discuss the role of dosage compensation in our findings and their evolutionary significance mediated by sex-specific survival and neuronal deterioration. Similar expression profiles in the coastal and inland populations suggest comparable genetic control by the microglia and possible similarities in pathogen pressures between habitats. We call for further studies on gene expression of males and females in wild population to understand the implications of immune function for life-histories and demography in natural systems.

Correct assessment of species limits and phylogenetic relationships is a prerequisite for studies in ecology and evolution. Even in well-studied groups such as birds, species delimitation often remains controversial. Traditional avian taxonomy is usually based on morphology, which might be misleading because of the contingent nature of evolutionary diversification. The sand plover complex (genus Charadrius) may be such an example wherein 2 Lesser Sand Plover C. mongolus subspecies groups have been proposed to comprise 2 species. We use genome-wide data of 765K SNPs to show that the widely accepted taxonomic treatment of this sand plover complex appears to be a paraphyletic grouping, with two Lesser Sand Plover subspecies groups found not to be each other’s closest relatives, and with the mongolus subspecies group being the sister taxon of Greater Sand Plover C. leschenaultii. Based on genomic and acoustic analyses, we propose a three-way split of the Sand Plover complex into the Siberian Sand Plover C. mongolus, Tibetan Sand Plover C. atrifrons, and Greater Sand Plover C. leschenaultii. The similar sizes of the Siberian and Tibetan Sand plovers may be the result of niche conservatism coupled with rapid morphological and ecological differentiation in the Greater Sand Plover. Gene flow between the non-sister Tibetan and Greater Sand plovers might have happened in phases of secondary contact as a consequence of climate-driven range expansions. We call for further studies of the Sand Plover complex, and suggest that speciation with intermittent gene flow is more common in birds than currently acknowledged.

Global biodiversity is facing serious threats. However, knowledge of the genomic consequences of recent rapid population declines of wild organisms is limited. Do populations experiencing recent rapid population decline experience the same genomic consequences as wild populations that experience long-term declines? Yellow-breasted Bunting (Emberiza aureola) is a critically endangered species that has been experiencing recent rapid population decline. To answer the question, we assembled and annotated whole genome of Yellow-breasted Bunting. Further, we found high genetic diversity, low linkage disequilibrium, and low proportion of long runs of homozygosity in Yellow-breasted Bunting, suggesting recent rapid population declines have different genomic consequences with the population that experienced long-term population decline.

2020年1月6日14:30左右,笔者在塘汛大桥(绵阳市涪城区)下游约150 m处(104.810 760 1°E,31.372 779 9°N)观鸟时发现1 只暗色鸭子,活动于凤头潜鸭Aythya fuligula、红头潜鸭Aythya ferina群外围(图1),体型较凤头潜鸭短小敦实,其在一个小卵石滩附近活动,下潜时长常超过20 s,潜水时尾巴贴于水面,休息时尾巴上翘.经查阅《中国鸟类野外手册》(约翰·马敬能等,2000),确认该鸟为白头硬尾鸭Oxyura leucocephala,为四川省鸟类新记录.

2018年之前,白冠攀雀(Remizcoronatus)在中国的已知分布范围仅限于新疆和宁夏北部.随着我国观鸟爱好者数量的增加,有人陆续在甘肃、陕西、内蒙古等地拍摄到了白冠攀雀.但由于白冠攀雀的形态特征与中华攀雀(R.consobrinus)有很多相似之处,科研人员和观鸟爱好者在野外观察过程中难以准确鉴定该物种,被误认的现象时有发生.为此,本文根据野外实地考察并参考相关文献资料,对白冠攀雀的形态特征及其与中华攀雀的差异进行了详细描述;并对其在中国的分布现状进行了更新.结果显示,白冠攀雀指名亚种(R.c.coronatus)为我国新疆西北部的夏候鸟;stoliczkae亚种为新疆北部的夏候鸟,新疆南部的冬候鸟,宁夏的夏候鸟和冬候鸟,甘肃、内蒙古和陕西的冬候鸟.

2021年6月22日,在西藏自治区墨脱县背崩乡(95. 12°E,29. 16°N,海拔1980 m)观察到1只雉科Phasianidae鸟类.发现时,该鸟正在穿越乡间道路,察觉到人类后并未马上离开,而是在路边回头观望,持续了30 s左右才钻进林子.周围生境为亚热带常绿阔叶林,林下植被茂密.该鸟额、头顶、耳羽、颈侧连接有黑色斑块呈带状;脖颈羽毛深橙红色;脸裸出部分金黄色;喉下肉裙黄色;体色羽毛有咖啡色圈斑间套白色小圆斑,各羽端有橄榄褐或黑色边缘,尾端黑色明显;腹羽烟灰色.经鉴定为灰腹角雉molesworthi亚种(藏南亚种) Tragopan blythi molesworthi.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.