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.

Heat stress–induced liver injury is a common and potentially life-threatening complication of heat exposure in both humans and animals. With the ongoing rise in global temperatures, effective preventive strategies are urgently needed. Lactic acid bacteria have been extensively studied and shown to effectively alleviate various types of liver injury; however, their specific role in heat stress–induced liver damage remains unknown. In our previous work, we isolated Lactobacillus plantarum L19 (LP-19), a strain with strong heat resistance and antioxidant capacity, from Holstein cow milk, suggesting its potential to benefit animals and humans under heat stress.

Ensuring high-quality colostrum for newborn calves is essential for their health and future productivity. We applied Bayesian finite mixture models to estimate optimal cutoff values and evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of 3 methods—radial immunodiffusion (RID) assay, transmission infrared (TIR) spectroscopy, and digital Brix (dBrix) refractometry—measured on a continuous scale for assessing bovine colostrum quality, using 591 colostrum samples from 42 Holstein dairy herds in Atlantic Canada. The mean and standard deviation of IgG concentrations for high-quality colostrum were 61.07 ± 39.8 g/L, 51.28 ± 27.38 g/L, and 24.32 ± 4.13% Brix for RID assay, TIR spectroscopy, and dBrix refractometry, respectively, compared with 19.93 ± 15.54 g/L, 7.78 ± 37.4 g/L, and 15.87 ± 3.45% Brix for low-quality samples.

In dairy cattle farming, many traits are included in the breeding goal simultaneously to maximize economic value. The phenomenon of genetic correlations can both enhance and hinder the response to selection and has to be taken into account in multitrait selection schemes. To investigate the genetic architecture of traits included in the balanced breeding goal in Germany, multitrait meta-analyses of 11 health and 22 conformation traits in 100,809 to 180,217 German Holstein cows were conducted, followed by the estimation of global genetic correlations between each pair of traits.

Kernza straw (KS) is a high-fiber, low-energy byproduct of intermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium [Host] Barkworth & D.R. Dewey) that may serve as an alternative forage to increase dietary fill and reduce the risk of over-conditioning in late-pregnant heifers. We hypothesized that inclusion of KS in the diet of late-pregnant heifers would reduce feed intake and BW gain, nutrient digestibility, and urinary N excretion, but increase enteric methane production depending on the level of inclusion.

The objective of this study was to investigate the mechanistic effects of different milk-derived substrates, cow milk, goat milk, and whey protein concentrate (WPC), on the structural development, microbial succession, and metabolite production of kefir grains during 28 d of continuous subculturing. Kefir grain morphology, microbial community dynamics, and substrate-driven metabolic shifts were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy, culture- and sequencing-based microbial profiling, and untargeted metabolomics.

The aims of this study were to (1) investigate the relationships between prepartum body condition, metabolic status, dam milk variables, and colostrum yield and its immunological and nutritional components; (2) investigate the relationships between colostrum variables of dams and female offspring's growth and metabolism from birth to weaning, from weaning to calving, and during the first 100 DIM; and (3) evaluate the correlation between dam colostrum variables and their offspring after their first calving.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of nitrate and Acacia mearnsii bark extract (AMT) supplementation; the latter with and without additional rumen-protected rapeseed meal (RPR), on performance, enteric CH4 emissions, and N partitioning in dairy cows fed a low-CP diet. The additional RPR aimed to counteract tannin-caused depressions of protein digestibility and potential reductions in milk production. Following a 2-wk covariate period, 18 multiparous Holstein cows were subjected to a split-plot design, with 2 main plot treatments (0.67% nitrate in dietary DM or isonitrogenous urea) and 3 subplot treatments arranged in a 3 × 3 Latin square: (1) a corn-silage-based control diet (CON; average 14.3% CP in DM), (2) CON supplemented with 3% of DM AMT containing 60% tannins (AMT), and (3) the AMT diet with an additional 6.4% of DM RPR (AMT+RPR).

The aim of this study was to characterize organic dairy systems in Brazil. It was hypothesized that the production level of the herd influences the productivity and marketing aspects of organic milk production systems. A descriptive analysis was carried out in which the variables were geographical location, herd size, animal production, feed used, health and reproduction management, organic inputs used, feed production management, and transportation of products. The characteristics of the systems were evaluated according to the level of production, with farmers divided into 3 groups, with the upper extract comprising farms with an average production of over 16 L/cow per day (HIG), the medium extract with a production between 10.5 and 16 L/cow per day (MED), and the lower extract with an average production of less than 10.5 L/cow per day (LO).

Calves that survive and thrive are important to the productivity of dairy herds through their role as potential herd replacements or as a source of livestock trading income. Conversely, calf losses are costly, leading to poorer farm productivity and welfare outcomes. Stillbirths (SB) are calvings where the calf dies near birth. Preweaning mortality (PWM) describes calves that are born alive but die before weaning. Improving SB and PWM can be achieved through conventional quantitative trait selection strategies, but these traits, especially SB, can sometimes occur because of a single large-effect recessive deleterious mutation.