It is the last issue of the year again, which seems to come round increasingly quickly as the years go by in my role as Editor in Chief. The main event this year was the World’s Poultry Congress held in China. I would like to thank the organisers, especially Katie, for their efforts in making us all welcome and making sure everything was ready for us. For myself and the Board members, it was a week of meetings, and an opportunity to meet old friends and colleagues as well as enjoy various social events, including a wonderful conference dinner. However most of us managed to find time to explore at least a small part of Beijing and its wonderful sights and history. Congratulations to Prof. Ning Yang on his Presidency for the next four years. Ning has been a very useful and approachable member of the board in his time served so far. This year, there was a new element added into the normal Board Meeting duties – with Alan Gibbins (President of Asia-Pacific region) organising a workshop looking towards the future of the WPSA and how to keep things current and encourage our membership with new and exciting ideas and projects. This is all covered in the various reports from the WPC in this issue, so I won’t go into details here – but merely wish to thank Alan for his hard work in this area and the board members for some great discussion and decisions.

As for the journal, our five year impact factor remains firm and we are still ‘up there’ and very stable in the lists of agricultural journals, despite being a much smaller publication and only taking review papers, rather than experimental reports, the former being much less numerous. We continue to address costs and accountability of the journal, always trying to maintain and improve on quality as well as deliver a great service to our readers. As such, we are now scrutinising papers where the subject matter is rather broad, as these topics need closer focus, especially in areas where there is a large body of scientific data which cannot hope to be adequately covered in a 20 page review. However, where we have submissions regarding new and interesting topics, I am always happy for authors to contact me if they wish to send in a longer review. We remain committed to encouraging young poultry scientists to publish reviews with us and are always happy to help guide authors through the system.

So I remain to wish all our readers best wishes for the New Year, wherever you are in the world. Here is to another exciting and interesting year in the world of poultry science.

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor

The World’s Poultry Science Journal is indebted to Prof J.A. Castello, Prof D.K. Flock, Dr D. Grastilleur, Dr S. Cherepanov and Prof N. Yang for the translations of these summaries.

On November 20, 2015, Irina G. Moiseyeva passed away in Moscow, Russia, at age of 83 years. She was a well known leading researcher of the Laboratory of Animal Comparative Genetics, N. I. Vavilov Institute of General Genetics.

Her whole life was devoted to the science and the Institute of General Genetics, where she worked after graduating from the Moscow State University in 1955.

In 1966, as a member of the Laboratory of Immunogenetics, she participated in the XIII World Poultry Congress in Kiev, USSR, being responsible for arranging the Soviet exposition, for which she was awarded a commemorative medal by the Ministry of Agriculture of the USSR.

In 1971, under the supervision of Kh. F. Kushner, Irina defended her thesis for the degree of Candidate of Biological Sciences on ‘Phenotypic and genotypic variability of the egg quality traits in chickens’. Afterwards, Irina worked in the Laboratory of Comparative Genetics at the Institute of General Genetics, where she led research on the genetics of domestic fowl and their primary wild ancestor Gallus gallus. Over the 60 years of her career, she published more than 150 articles on the origin, evolution, distribution, qualitative and quantitative genetics, biochemical and molecular polymorphisms and morphological characteristics of chickens. Irina gave particular attention to the issues of conservation of genetic resources, firstly for Russian breeds as well as their history and origins. A number of her studies were devoted to the principles of classification of chicken breeds from which she set up a data bank describing over 230 chicken breeds. Important aspects of Irina scientific work included the popularising activities for the public, teachers and fanciers, aimed at creating awareness for conservation of genetic resources of domestic animals.

Irina participated in the writing of several fundamental books published in Russian, and in particular, the summarising work ‘Farm Animal Genetic Resources: Rare and Endangered Breeds’ (1992), and a chapter entitled ‘Chicken breeds and their gene pool’ in the book ‘The Gene Pool of Farm Animals: Genetic Resources of Livestock Production’ (2006).

Irina was a principled person, with an active lifestyle, a member of the All-Russian Society of Geneticists and Breeders (VOGIS). As a scientific adviser, she was often involved in the activities of the All-Russian Society of Poultry Fanciers. She took part in many meetings under the auspices of the World Poultry Science Association and presented research both within Russia and abroad (England, the Czech Republic, and Israel). It is thanks to her efforts that Russia became a participant of the international research project AVIANDIV (1999–2000), in which investigators from 21 countries tested 52 chicken populations at 25 microsatellite loci, including two Russian breeds.

She was an intelligent and keen conversationalist, distinguished by modesty and tact, combined with kindness. The Russian poultry science community has lost one of the patriarchs of farm animal genetics, and we will miss a friend and colleague.

As many of you will have seen, the 2016 World’s Poultry Congress in Beijing is gearing up – with abstracts in and preparations underway. Our association news contains more information on this – the organisers have been sorting out cheaper ways for attendance and there are prizes up for grabs for students, so do check out their website. The Board will be having their annual meeting there as well – which is a good time to catch up with all the reviewers and editorial board members who we rely on heavily for support of the journal – many thanks to all of them.

I do hope many of you have been receiving papers via FirstView – which publishes papers online as soon as they are finalised in the editorial office. We have more papers than ever to process, so if you have delay in your review coming out please bear in mind we operate typically six months ahead in terms of final publishing from final approval. I have recently returned from publishers meetings in the UK and attended the WPSA UK conference in Chester as well – where we held a memorial for Prof. Gordon Rosen, who sadly died last year. The conference dinner was followed by a very well attended drinks party held in the bar (as Gordon would have approved of) with his widow Mrs. Vanda Rosen present for the WPSA dinner as well as the celebration of his life. I have never been at such a memorial gathering before and many people came and said lovely things about Gordon. Several speeches were made regarding his wonderful character, sense of humour and attitude to precision in poultry science. Mention was made of his tendency to be the ‘sweet old man’ in the front row of conferences who delivered killer questions to the unwary! I know Vanda would like to thank the organisers, especially Dr Mike Bedford, Dr Emily Burton and Dr Vicky Sandilands and the UK board for their assistance in organising such a great event.

We have had another sad loss of an excellent poultry scientist; Ir Douwe Arnold Ehlhardt in the Netherlands recently passed away (see obituary). His contribution highlights how much was done by scientists in the past to not only to progress poultry production, but also to change how poultry are raised to come into line with modern needs.

However, as always, science moves on and we have an excellent program of WPSA related symposia during the year. Please do support these events and their sponsors, as without the latter we could not keep up the essential discussion between business and academia.

See you all in China!

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor

Well the WPC is upon us! And here’s hoping for an excellent turn out of trade, commercial and academic delegates. The Chinese Branch have been very active in their organisation leading up to the event and should be congratulated on their hard work. Of course, this is the year when new board members are elected, or old ones retained, and I would like to pass on my regards to our new President Dr Ning Yang. We will have two meetings as a consequence, one for the outgoing board and one to welcome new members. I look forward to seeing both old colleagues and new.

The Journal continues to grow and diversify, and I trust you will enjoy this current issue. For potential authors, please be aware that we no longer take INFPD papers unless they have special global reach – and all papers for this field should now be redirected to DrFallou Gueye at efgueye@refer.sn who is now publishing these papers for a more targeted readership.

Recent papers given in the USA by the WPSA branch there have further highlighted the role of micro-organisms on the gut and how they can affect behaviour via production of neurotransmitters, as discussed by Dr Lyte (see association news). New topics within poultry science such as this are very good to see. As an association we continue to grow and adapt to the new challenges of poultry science including generating interest in young scientists to stay within the industry. Often it’s the students that are investigating novel new concepts that lead to new chapters in the field. I always try to be encouraging for our younger scientists to become published – especially as many are writing literature reviews on new areas as part of their thesis submission. Please feel free to contact me regarding such review papers, if you are in any doubt about relevance.

Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you at WPC, especially the Editorial Board members, without which the Journal would cease to function. Thanks to them for all their input!

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor

The science and practice of poultry nutrition has changed greatly over the last hundred years, moving from a backyard enterprise to the modern computer-controlled production of whole diets formulated to specific nutrient compositions. This has become possible as a result of the identification of individual nutrients and their metabolic roles. Although the word ‘protein’ was first used in 1834, it was not until the 1950s that the avalanche of research on protein and amino acid requirements of poultry started. Energy content of feeds did not become a consideration until the 1940s when the concept of metabolisable energy was introduced. The term ‘vitamin’ was first proposed in 1912 to describe the essentiality of thiamine. The term was later extended to cover other essential compounds needed in small quantities. By the 1940s all the remaining 12 vitamins had been identified, and in the 1970s the importance of the vitamin D metabolites was discovered. The importance of calcium and phosphorus for both growing and laying birds was identified in the early stages of poultry keeping and requirements and dietary ratios were established. More recently, the introduction of feed phytase has allowed lowering of both phosphorus and calcium concentrations. Carbohydrase enzymes have also been development for addition to feeds. The importance of sodium, phosphorus and chloride in maintaining electrolyte balance was identified. Trace minerals were usually supplemented in diets as inorganic salts but organic chelates or proteinates have been found in recent years to be absorbed more efficiently. Antibiotics were widely used as growth promoters but their banning, especially in Europe, has led to the search for alternative additives with growth or health benefits. Poultry nutrition is now a scientifically mature subject but changes in industrial practice can be expected to continue, though probably at a slower pace than in recent years.

Commercial poultry production is associated with various stresses affecting productive and reproductive performance of birds and their health status. In general, there are four major types of stress in poultry industry: technological, environmental, nutritional and internal stresses. This review considered main technological stresses: chick placement, increased stocking density, chicken weighing, grading and group formation in rearing houses, as well as bird transferring to breeder houses. The following paper analysed consequences of such environmental stresses as temperature stress and high levels of dust and ammonia in poultry houses. It has been proven that most of the aforementioned stresses suppress reproductive performance of parent birds, including reduced fertility and hatchability. Furthermore, stresses are associated with impaired feed conversion, reduced average daily weight gain, immunosuppression and increased mortality in growing birds. A growing body of evidence indicates that most of stresses in poultry production at the cellular level are associated with oxidative stress due to excess of free radical production or inadequate antioxidant protection. Therefore, the development of the effective nutritional solutions to decrease negative consequences of commercially-relevant stresses is an important task for poultry scientists. One of such approaches is based on vitagene concept which will be considered in the second part of the review.

The importance of the crop is often underestimated in poultry production. In addition to storing ingested feed, it also can impact nutrient digestion by digesta softening and the initial activity of feed (endogenous and exogenous) and microbial enzymes. The crop represents the first major defence against poultry pathogens and zoonotic organisms with well established adaptive and innate immune function, and a lactobacilli dominated microbiota capable of reducing the passage of these organisms further along the digestive tract. However, the potential to improve bird productivity and health, as well as affect meat and egg safety, are influenced by the nature of the diet, and in particular feed entry and extended presence in the crop. This is required to promote lactobacilli fermentation, the production of lactic acid and other volatile fatty acids, and the lowering of crop pH. Management practices such as meal feeding and the use of lighting programs with extended dark periods encourage crop utilisation. Further, the use of feed additives such as prebiotics and probiotics may enhance crop function, which in turn contributes to well-being of the entire digestive tract. A healthy and functional crop, along with other segments of digestive tract, has increased importance in an era of reduced antibiotic use in poultry feeds.

Several techniques are available solely applicable to the study of inevitable endogenous flow or the digestibility of amino acids (AAs) at the terminal ileum. But the linear regression technique combines these tasks in one simple and flexible platform extendable to multifactorial evaluation of feedstuffs, for example under alternating dietary and physiological conditions. There is evidence that the amount and composition of inevitable endogenous flows are not constant. Also their estimates are dependent on assay protocols and other laboratory conditions. This variability is a drawback to methodological precision of the current conventional standardised digestibility (cSID) system, where inevitable endogenous flow is applied to correct apparent digestibility. Notably cSID may suffer systematic errors when used to assay low AA ingredients or those high in AAs and in anti-nutrients, leading to underestimation or overestimation of standardised digestibility, respectively. Thus a standardised system not encumbered by the need to determine inevitable flow should offer more latitude for precision. The latter approach is followed in linear regression. The linear regression approach is based on validated hypotheses both mathematical and physiological, which enable its ordinate intercept and slope respectively to be considered as inevitable endogenous flow and standardised digestibility. The literature shows that this method does not penalise ingredients low in AAs as its estimates are independent of dietary crude protein level; and it is efficient to determine standardised digestibility in feedstuffs which elevate the production of specific endogenous ileal AA flow. Nevertheless work remains to be done to standardise its protocols to improve comparability of data across investigations. It can be concluded that linear regression is a reliable path for routine determination of inevitable endogenous flow and standardised AA digestibility at the end of the ileum.

Cottonseed meal (CSM) is a by-product of the oil industry, i.e. oil extraction from cotton seeds. It is a rich source of protein (30 to 50% dry matter), characterised by a high concentration of amino acids. However, a relatively low concentration of lysine restricts the quality of protein in CSM. Its use as a feed material in poultry nutrition is limited mainly by free gossypol presence, as well as high variability in nutrient concentration. Gossypol is a polyphenolic compound reducing protein digestibility by inhibition of pepsin and trypsin activity in the intestine and binding iron in the diet. High dietary levels of CSM can negatively affect growth performance and egg production and quality. Dietary treatments including increased iron and lysine supplementation can increase the usefulness of CSM in poultry nutrition by alleviating the toxic effect of gossypol. The results of recent experiments on the use of CSM meal as a feed material for poultry are discussed in this review article. Based on the results presented, cottonseed meal is an acceptable ingredient of poultry diets and could be safely fed at a 10-15% dietary level, partially replacing - in a cost effective way - soybean meal.

The manipulation of the photoperiod by the use of lighting programmes is a useful tool, inexpensive and can help to reduce the negative effect on feed intake due to the stress caused by hot environments. Lighting programmes for broiler chickens are used to regulate feed intake, providing access to food and water, especially during the cooler hours of the day. The change in the length of the photoperiod can be an alternative way to improve the welfare, immune response and, consequently, the performance of birds that are subject to heat stress. The purpose of this paper was to review relevant research on the use of lighting programmes for broilers.

The effect of sodium butyrate on various bodily parameters of broilers such as performance, gut microflora, gut morphology, and immunity is reviewed in order to highlight its importance as an alternative to antibiotic growth promoters. Sodium butyrate is used as a source of butyric acid, which is known for its beneficial effects in the gut in monogastrics. Sodium butyrate is available in uncoated and enteric-coated forms protected with fat or fatty acid salts. Varying results in productive performance, gut microbes, and gut morphology have been reported in the literature in response to supplementation of broiler diets with uncoated and fat-coated types of sodium butyrate. However, sodium butyrate has shown pronounced effects on immunity of chickens that are not fully understood yet. Although there are contrasting results of sodium butyrate in chicken, further research is needed using the sodium butyrate coated with the salts of fatty acids.