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Highly pathogenic avian influenza is an increasing global concern but its distribution in remote regions is not known. Here, the authors conduct an environmental influenza surveillance study in remote, uninhabited regions of the Global South by sampling fresh bird guano.

Analysis of crop yields, farmer income and bird species abundances identifies multiple positive outcomes of a large-scale Indian government-incentivized agroecology initiative.

Fossils of Cretaceous birds with feathers are rare and known mostly from China. Here, the authors show an enantiornithine bird from the Lower Cretaceous of Brazil with a fully articulated skeleton and rachis-dominated tail feathers, which has implications for our understanding of feather evolution.

Garden bird feeding is a prolific human activity that provides a reliable foraging opportunity to wild birds. Here the authors use a 40-year data set to show that large-scale restructuring of garden bird communities and growth in urban bird populations can be linked to changing feeding practices.

A central goal of evolutionary biology is to identify the genetic mechanisms underlying the emergence of morphological novelties. This study reports numerous sequences showing accelerated accumulation of substitutions, and likely to be critical for the evolution of mammal and bird specific traits.

Birdsong has long connected humans to nature. Historical reconstructions using bird monitoring and song recordings collected by citizen scientists reveal that the soundscape of birdsong in North America and Europe is both quieter and less varied, mirroring declines in bird diversity and abundance.

The microbiome in the uropygial gland and feathers of the bird Pachycephala schlegii has protective properties. Here, the authors report an Amycolatopsis species in this microbiome that produces antimicrobials including two novel compound families.

The distance that individuals disperse to between birth and first breeding determines the dynamics and genetic composition of natural populations. Here the authors show that in great tits (Parus major), the distance of local dispersal is genetically coupled with exploratory behaviour measured in the lab.

Interactions between European bird and plant species show that fruiting period has a major effect on seed dispersal by migrating birds, which will influence plant adaptations to climate change through latitudinal dispersal.

A dataset of the genomes of 363 species from the Bird 10,000 Genomes Project shows increased power to detect shared and lineage-specific variation, demonstrating the importance of phylogenetically diverse taxon sampling in whole-genome sequencing.

The degree to which species tolerate human disturbance contributes to shape human-wildlife coexistence. Here, the authors identify key predictors of avian tolerance of humans across 842 bird species from open tropical ecosystems.

Arboviruses are climate sensitive, and their global distributions are changing. Here, the authors describe results of a One Health study programme to investigate the occurrence of Usutu and West Nile Virus in the Netherlands, a previously non-endemic area.

Long-distance bird migration timing is thought to be relatively inflexible despite climate change. Here, based on 13 years of mark-resight and geolocator-tracking data on bar-tailed godwits, the authors report a 6-day advance of departure time which is explained by an unexpected degree of individual plasticity.

Citizen-science data on bird observations from eastern North America show that the timing of spring arrival of migratory birds is broadly correlated with fluctuations in vegetation green-up but that the varying sensitivity of different bird species to this phenological event is linked to their different migratory strategies.

Birds have a more crouched posture compared to their theropod dinosaur ancestors. Here, Jiang and colleagues describe a lower hindlimb of the Early Cretaceous birdConfuciusorniswith soft tissues apparently preserved even as molecules, indicating a somewhat more modern posture in ancient birds.

Non-parental helpers contribute to offspring care in many species; however, the amount of care provided varies considerably across species. Here, Green et al. perform a phylogenetic comparative analysis of helping behavior in 36 cooperatively-breeding bird species and find that helper effort increases with relatedness to the recipient of care.

Data from three citizen science programmes on the occurrence, abundance, community structure and demography of birds across the UK show that protected areas are associated with improved state for most species and provide the most benefit to specialist, rare and declining species.

Climate change may pose a challenge not only for survival of animals but also for their reproduction. Here, Schou et al. analyse how male and female ostrich fertility relates to fluctuating temperature across 20 years, finding reduced fertility away from the thermal optimum, but also individual variation in thermal tolerance.

Organisms are expected to adapt to climate change because of selection pressures. Here, the authors demonstrate that brown morphs of Finnish owls are selected against in winters with plentiful snow, and concordantly, increasing winter temperatures and lower snow fall results in the selection of the brown morph.

This study found that millennial periods of higher rainfall combined with rising sea level enhanced sediment accumulation in Amazonian rivers valleys. This fuelled synchronous expansion of vegetation adapted to seasonally flooded substrates and its specialized bird populations, showing how global climate changes can affect specific Amazonian species.

The plumage of Cretaceous birds has previously been described only from compression fossils and isolated feathers in amber. Here, Xing et al.describe two 99 million year old bird wings found preserved in amber, enabling new insight into the evolution of feather arrangement, pigmentation, and structure.

The homology of digits across amniotes is debated. Here, the authors compare the developmental transcriptomes of digits across five divergent amniotes and show high evolutionary dynamism in expression profiles, with conservation of a distinct developmental identity only in the anterior-most digit.

Human-generated noise and night lighting affect breeding habits and fitness in birds, implying that sensory pollutants must be considered alongside other environmental factors in assessing biodiversity conservation.

The transition from non-avian dinosaurs to birds capable of powered flight represents a major evolutionary transition. Here the authors analyse 48 bird genomes and identify avian-specific highly conserved elements with roles in avian limb development.

It is unclear whether biodiversity evolves gradually or in rapid bursts associated with speciation. Here, the authors show that patterns of avian trait divergence are not gradual and that early pulses of trait divergence promote subsequent transitions to sympatry.

For the first time under reproducible and fully double-blinded conditions, it is shown that anthropogenic electromagnetic noise below the WHO limits affects a biological system: night-migrating birds lose the ability to use the Earth’s magnetic field for orientation when exposed to anthropogenic electromagnetic noise at strengths routinely produced by commonly used electronic devices.

The regulation of cellular neuronal properties distinct from synaptic plasticity has been proposed as a mechanism of functional network organization. Here, the authors show that the magnitude of five ion currents in basal ganglia projection song system forebrain neurons covary across life, rapidly and dynamically relating to learned features of individual zebra finches’ songs.

The hypothesis that species are most abundant at the centre of their geographic range has been widely debated. Here, by analysing over 3,600 species, the authors find that this pattern is generally not true for animals but does occur in some plant groups, being influenced by dispersal traits and evolution.

Analysis of soundscape data from 139 globally distributed sites reveals that sounds of biological origin exhibit predictable rhythms depending on location and season, whereas sounds of anthropogenic origin are less predictable. Comparisons between paired urban–rural sites show that urban green spaces are noisier and dominated by sounds of technological origin.