review · Frontiers in Physiology
Heat stress remains a critical environmental challenge for poultry production, gaining heightened attention due to climate change and global warming. A bibliometric analysis was conducted on 468 publications from the Web of Science Core Collection between 2000 and 2021 to assess research patterns and frontiers. The findings show an annual publication growth rate of 4.56 percent over two decades. China emerged as the leading contributor in publication volume, institutional representation, funding, and international collaborations, with Nanjing Agricultural University being the most prolific institution. Highly cited studies primarily addressed the physiological impacts of heat stress, alleviation strategies, and links to oxidative stress. Current research hotspots focus on growth performance, meat quality, immune responses, and intestinal morphology, whilst emerging areas include antioxidants, probiotics, microflora, gene expression, and inflammatory pathways.
Rising global temperatures present escalating challenges to poultry welfare and global food production. By tracking two decades of research output, this analysis highlights where scientific efforts have concentrated and where gaps remain. It offers researchers, agricultural policymakers, and funding bodies a clear guide to prioritize high-impact areas, such as nutritional and biological interventions, to protect livestock productivity under changing climatic conditions.
This study highlights early-stage research frontiers that could inform the poultry nutrition and animal health industries. Topics such as antioxidants, probiotics, and dietary management represent potential intervention pathways to protect poultry from heat-induced production losses. While the study itself maps literature rather than developing products, the highlighted themes direct feed manufacturers and biotechnology firms toward specific biological targets and feed additives that require applied testing.
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Background: Heat stress remains a major environmental factor affecting poultry production. With growing concerns surrounding climate change and its antecedent of global warming, research on heat stress in poultry has gradually gained increased attention. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the current status, identify the research frontiers, and highlight the research trends on heat stress in poultry research using bibliometric analysis. Methods: The literature search was performed on the Web of Science Core Collection database for documents published from 2000 to 2021. The documents retrieved were analyzed for their publication counts, countries, institutions, keywords, sources, funding, and citation records using the bibliometric app on R software. Network analysis for co-authorship, co-occurrence, citation, co-citation, and bibliographic coupling was visualized using the VOSviewer software. Results: A total of 468 publications were retrieved, and over the past two decades, there was a gradual increase in the annual number of publications (average growth rate: 4.56%). China had the highest contribution with respect to the number of publications, top contributing authors, collaborations, funding agencies, and institutions. Nanjing Agricultural University, China was the most prolific institution. Kazim Sahin from Firat University, Turkey contributed the highest number of publications and citations to heat stress in poultry research, and Poultry Science was the most productive and the most cited journal. The top 10 globally cited documents mainly focused on the effects of heat stress, alleviation of heat stress, and the association between heat stress and oxidative stress in poultry. All keywords were grouped into six clusters which included studies on “growth performance”, “intestinal morphology”, “heat stress”, “immune response”, “meat quality”, and “oxidative stress” as current research hotspots. In addition, topics such as; “antioxidants”, “microflora”, “intestinal barrier”, “rna-seq”, “animal welfare”, “gene expression”, “probiotics”, “feed restriction”, and “inflammatory pathways” were identified for future research attention. Conclusion: This bibliometric study provides a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the global research trends on heat stress in poultry over the last two decades, and it is expected to serve as a useful reference for potential research that will help address the impacts of heat stress on poultry production globally.
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DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1123582
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