The avian physiology section is now five years old. This special e-book is to commemorate this event. For this highlights issue celebrating the first five years of the Avian Physiology section, it was decided to focus on the top papers/reviews published. Table 1 lists the top fifteen papers/reviews based on either views or down-loads as a pdf. There is some agreement between the two lists. What is compelling is that of the top papers, all except one encompasses research conducted in domesticated birds, predominantly with chickens with one focused on turkeys. It is perhaps not unexpected that research on chickens dominates the top papers because of the following: - Chickens are commercially important being the number one meat animal globally. - Chickens are used as the model species for birds. Other possibilities that could be the case include the following: - There are more researchers working on chickens compared to other commercial or wild species. - There are other avenues to publish wild bird research. - Lack of funding for open access article processing charges. The exceptions to the chicken papers/reviews is a paper on a passerine bird, the migratory blackheaded bunting (Emberiza melanocephala) (Singh et al., 2018) and a review paper focused on turkey satellite cell proliferation and differentiation (Velleman and Song, 2017). Of the top papers/reviews, six were related to muscle physiology (Bottje et al., 2017; Greene et al., 2019; Lassiter et al., 2019; Lin et al., 2017; Piekarski et al., 2020; Velleman and Song, 2017). These papers address different aspects of the physiology of muscle functioning and development in chickens or turkeys, specifically the following: - Small RNAs from the transcribed from mitochondrial genome in muscle (Bottje et al., 2017) - Leptin induced autophagy of muscle cells (Piekarski et al., 2020) - Proliferation and differentiation of myoblasts: influence of syndecan-4 and glypican-1 (Velleman and Song, 2017) - Myostatin signaling and muscle growth (Lassiter et al., 2019) The role of growth factors and signal transduction pathways in myoblast proliferation (Lin et al., 2017) - Muscle pathology, specifically, woody breast myopathy (Greene et al., 2019) There are also among the top papers/reviews on multiple diverse other organs and systems namely the following: adipose tissue (Abdalla et al., 2018), bone (Adhikari et al., 2019), feathering (Chen et al., 2019), gastro-intestinal functioning/microbiome (Li et al., 2018; Kraimi et al., 2018; Rodrigues et al., 2020), immune functioning (Bi et al., 2018; Wei et al., 2018), kidneys (Li et al., 2018), liver (Flees et al., 2017; Singh et al., 2018), endogenous opioids (Scanes and Pierzchala-Koziec, 2018), photoperiodism (Hanlon et al., 2020), pituitary gland (Zhang et al., 2021) and reproduction (Eusemann et al., 2018; Li et al., 2018). The geographical distribution of the top papers is interesting as summarized in Table 2. The United States of America and the People’s Republic of China were the country of origin of most of the papers. In addition, there were papers/reviews from Europe (France, Germany and a collaborative paper between researchers in the USA and Poland) and India. Of the top papers/reviews from the USA, six come from a single department, namely, the Department of Poultry Science/Center of Excellence for Poultry Science, University of Arkansas (Bottje et al., 2017; Flees et al., 2017; Green et al., 2019; Lassiter et al., 2019; Piekarski et al., 2020; Rodrigues

A comparative overview of the effects of neuropeptides on behavior, examining parallel findings in both humans and non-human animals.

Physiology.

In this text Jay Schulkin discusses and emphasizes the important roles of steroids and neuropeptides in the regulation of behavior. The guiding principle behind much of the research and insights that are presented in the book is the concept of using certain model animal systems to study how hormones influence the brain. The results from these model systems can then be used to generalize the information obtained and apply it to other animals and humans. Senior undergraduate and graduate students in neuroscience, endocrinology, psychology, and physiology will find this text a useful guide to the role of hormones in behavior. It should be of use to colleagues in the field and medical health-care professionals.

Selected by Forbes.com as one of the 12 best books about birds and birding in 2016 This much-anticipated third edition of the Handbook of Bird Biology is an essential and comprehensive resource for everyone interested in learning more about birds, from casual bird watchers to formal students of ornithology. Wherever you study birds your enjoyment will be enhanced by a better understanding of the incredible diversity of avian lifestyles. Arising from the renowned Cornell Lab of Ornithology and authored by a team of experts from around the world, the Handbook covers all aspects of avian diversity, behaviour, ecology, evolution, physiology, and conservation. Using examples drawn from birds found in every corner of the globe, it explores and distills the many scientific discoveries that have made birds one of our best known - and best loved - parts of the natural world. This edition has been completely revised and is presented with more than 800 full color images. It provides readers with a tool for life-long learning about birds and is suitable for bird watchers and ornithology students, as well as for ecologists, conservationists, and resource managers who work with birds. The Handbook of Bird Biology is the companion volume to the Cornell Lab's renowned distance learning course, www.birds.cornell.edu/courses/home/homestudy/.

At the heart of this book by Nobel Prize–winning immunologist and professor Peter Doherty is this striking observation: Birds detect danger to our health and the environment before we do. Following a diverse cast of bird species around the world—from tufted puffins in Puget Sound to griffon vultures in India, pigeons in East Asia, and wedge-tailed shearwaters off the islands of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef—Doherty illuminates birds’ role as an early warning system for threats to the health of our planet and our own well-being.Their Fate Is Our Fate is an impassioned call not only to attention but to action. As “citizen scientists” we can collect data, vital to cutting-edge research, that depends on the birds that are all around us. Armed with our observations, scientists will continue to uncover new ways to glimpse our future in birds—and to affirm how, truly, their fate is our fate.

This unique book explains how changes in poultry and egg production and processing have paced the entire agricultural field. Completely revised to include current information on the North American and global poultry industry, this comprehensive overview brings together the biology and technology of poultry, and includes a complete accounting of all phases of the industry. Topics covered include: poultry biology, incubation, genetics and breeding, nutrition, feeds and additives, management, animal waste, food safety, health, housing and equipment, eggs, layers, and meat production; as well as comprehensive appendices that discussing the raising of poultry, game, and ornamental birds. For employees, managers, and owners of poultry producing businesses.

Neurosciences – a comprehensive approach This textbook covers neuroscience from cellular and molecular mechanisms to behavior and cognitive processing. We also address evolution of the nervous system, computational neuroscience, the history of neuroscience as a discipline and neurophilosophy – to name but a few. The book provides the newest state-of-the-art knowledge about neuroscience from across the animal kingdom, with particular emphasis on model species commonly used in neuroscience labs across the world: mouse, zebra fish, fruit fly, honeybee, and nematode worm. We aim at university students of neuroscience, psychology, biological sciences, and medical sciences, but also computer scientists, philosophers, or anybody interested in understanding how brains work.