The American Dairy Science Association, the Journal of Dairy Science, and JDS Communications gratefully acknowledge the following individuals who served as members of the editorial boards and as ad hoc reviewers for the journals in 2025.

The 2025 elected fellows were recognized at the Awards Ceremony of the American Dairy Science Association on June 24, 2025.

The annual Awards Program of the American Dairy Science Association was held on June 24, 2025. Graduate Student Division leaders Miranda Farricker and Mauricio Guerra read the citations. The association greatly appreciates the continued generosity and support of the donors in presenting the annual awards to ADSA® members.

I want to thank the ADSA Board of Directors (https://www.adsa.org/About-ADSA/Leadership), ADSA Executive Director Jerry Bowman, and the ADSA staff for their work in 2024 and 2025. It was a privilege to work with this dedicated group.

Invited review: A systematic review of the effects of pair housing on dairy calf welfare and productivity. By Bučková et al., page 12878. Individual housing of young dairy calves is still prevalent in Europe as well as North America, but the adoption of social housing is gaining traction. In this review, we summarize research findings on the welfare and productivity of pair-housed calves compared with individually housed calves. The advantages of pair housing include better behavioral reactions to stressful husbandry procedures and improved social behavior.

The list of standard abbreviations for JDS is available at adsa.org/jds-abbreviations-24. Nonstandard abbreviations are available in the Notes.

The recently published retrospective observational study by Overton and Eicker (2025) is well conducted, revealing many associations between previous days open and days dry and their association with replacement risk and milk production in early subsequent lactation. However, the conclusions are unjustifiably bold considering that this is a retrospective observational study where the reason for the delay in days open is unknown and that controlled studies drawing different conclusions do exist.

“Diligence. I looked it up, in your dictionary. Constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken. Persistence. Application. But also, toil. And pain.” (Quote courtesy of Definition Delaware LLC, with permission.) These were the words spoken by the character Ada Murray in defending her husband in the movie, The Professor and the Madman. As I reflect on the past 6 yr in service to the Journal of Dairy Science (JDS), there is no doubt in my mind that each monthly issue is a display of the diligent efforts of our authors, reviewers, and editors.

The objective of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the association of estrus detection within the voluntary waiting period (VWP) using automated activity monitoring (AAM) systems with reproductive performance in lactating Holstein cows. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in PubMed, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar using specific search terms. Inclusion criteria focused on studies that assessed estrus detection within the VWP using AAM systems. Six manuscripts involving 8,621 cows were included.

High charge contamination of dairy residual streams presents a challenge that needs to be addressed for their valorization. This work offers an alternative to the production of biosurfactants through controlled fermentation using lactic acid bacteria and costly nutritional supplements, promoting sustainability and a circular economy. Biosurfactants were extracted from microbial biomass contained in dairy waste by solid-liquid extraction with PBS, without the addition of external nutritional supplements, and then purified by dialysis.

The interpretation of milk pregnancy-associated glycoproteins (PAG) ELISA tests can potentially be improved by understanding the variations in PAG levels throughout gestation. We hypothesized that milk yield (MY) on test day has a meaningful effect on these variations, but that other factors may influence this relationship. The objective of our study was to investigate and quantify the interactions between test-day MY and parity and breed, considering the known fluctuations in PAG levels as a function of the number of days in pregnancy (DIP).

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of a blend of postbiotics and essential oil compounds on lactation performance in dairy cows supplemented during the transition period until 60 DIM. Sixty-one Holstein dairy cows were enrolled in a randomized complete block design from −35 to 60 DIM and blocked according to expected calving day, parity, and previous lactation ECM. At −35 d before expected calving date (32 ± 3.8 d relative to actual calving), cows were assigned to either a basal diet plus 100 g/d of ground corn and 25 g/d of placebo (CTL; n = 30) or a basal diet plus 100 g/d of ground corn and 25 g/d of a blend of postbiotic and essential oil compounds, including but not limited to cinnamaldehyde and garlic oil (PE; n = 31).

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of 4 dietary treatments on dairy cow performance: (1) Bacillus subtilis (2 strains provided together at 2.0 × 109 cfu/d), (2) Clostridium beijerinckii (6 environmental strains provided together at 4 × 106 cfu/d), (3) the combination of the same B. subtilis and C. beijerinckii strains at these same doses, and (4) a control diet without C. beijerinckii and B. subtilis. Treatments were administered from 21 d relative to expected calving until 70 DIM.

Reproductive efficiency is critical to the profitability and productivity of dairy farms. However, reproductive traits have often been overlooked in favor of enhancing milk production, resulting in unintended genetic antagonism. This study focused on estimating genetic parameters and genetic trends for economically important reproductive traits which include conception rate (CR), days open (DO), age at first calving (AFC), number of services per conception (NS), and calving interval (CInt), using 33,203 records of Holstein cattle that were under intensive management in Shandong Province, China.

Methane intensity (MeI), defined as the grams of enteric methane emitted (MeP) per kilogram of milk yield (MY), is a widely used metric to assess the GHG efficiency of dairy production. Although dairy sheep produce less milk globally than cattle, they emit more methane per unit of milk, making MeI a critical metric for these systems. However, most studies on enteric MeI focus on the lactation period only, overlooking nonproductive phases like growth, gestation, and dry periods. Such short-term measures can be misleading when evaluating sustainability and efficiency and raise the need for a more comprehensive metric.

The maternal environment during gestation influences fetal development, with long-lasting effects on postnatal health and productivity. This study evaluated the effect of prenatal heat stress (PNHS) on blood DNA methylation of dairy calves immediately after birth and whether such modifications persist into early life. Holstein calves were born to dams exposed to either PNHS (n = 36, temperature-humidity index >68, access to shade of a freestall barn) or prenatal cooling (PNTN; n = 37, access to shade and evaporative cooling) during the last 54 ± 5 d of gestation.

This study evaluated the DM and nutrient intake, apparent total-tract digestibility, feed particle sorting, milk yield and composition, blood metabolites, rumen fermentation, and nitrogen balance of dairy cows supplemented with essential oils, alone or in combination with live yeast. Forty-two Holstein cows (177 ± 56.0 DIM, 36.4 ± 5.26 kg/d milk yield, 630 ± 121.0 kg BW; 18 primiparous and 24 multiparous) were grouped into 14 blocks based on DIM, milk yield, BW, and parity, and assigned to the following treatments: (1) control (CON); (2) blend of essential oils (BLD), containing coriander (Coriandrum sativum) seed oil, eugenol, geranyl acetate, and geraniol, fed at 1 g/cow per day (Agolin Ruminant, Agolin SA); or (3) BLD + yeast (BLDY), composed by BLD fed at 1 g/cow per day + Saccharomyces cerevisiae, fed at 2 g/cow per day (Yea-Sacc, Alltech).