Birds In PLoS ONE!

If you are an astute watcher of the PLoS ONE homepage (or the PLoS Blog, or my blog for that matter), you may have noticed that PLoS ONE now has something like a 'theme of the month', i.e., a single, broad topic that we highlight in several different ways on the homepage, blog, in e-mails, etc. We check out the most viewed and downloaded papers on the topic and interview the authors and Academic Editors of those papers, etc. Last month, in May, the theme was Cell Signaling. This month, June '08, the overarching theme is The Birds!

If you search PLoS ONE for bird + avian (keep clicking 'Next' at the bottom of the page again and again), you will see that PLoS ONE has published several dozen interesting articles on various aspects of bird biology. Those articles can be roughly classified into three categories:

- evolution/ecology/conservation
- physiology/neuroscience/behavior
- avian flu

Some papers span two or even all three of the topics (e.g., on the way ecology and behavior of migratory birds affects the epidemiology of bird flu). When we checked the stats to see which bird-related papers have been viewed the most, these articles emerged as our Top 5:

Coevolution of Male and Female Genital Morphology in Waterfowl. Interviews with the author and the Academic Editor of this paper can be found here.

A Visual Pathway Links Brain Structures Active during Magnetic Compass Orientation in Migratory Birds (there is also a brief blurb by the author at the above link).

Cross-Clade Protective Immune Responses to Influenza Viruses with H5N1 HA and NA Elicited by an Influenza Virus-Like Particle

Leg Disorders in Broiler Chickens: Prevalence, Risk Factors and Prevention

Cross-Protection against Lethal H5N1 Challenge in Ferrets with an Adjuvanted Pandemic Influenza Vaccine

There will be something new about Birds In PLoS every Tuesday night on the ONE homepage this month, as well as one or two Journal Clubs on bird-related papers (do you want to do one of these - call me). As I am a bird-man myself, this makes me happy. I hope you like what we have as well.