Let us consider a complex abelian scheme endowed with a non-torsion section. On some suitable open subsets of the base it is possible to define the period map, i.e. a holomorphic map which marks a basis of the period lattice for each fiber. Since the abelian exponential map of the associated Lie algebra bundle is locally invertible, one can define a notion of abelian logarithm attached to the section. In general, the period map and the abelian logarithm cannot be globally defined on the base, in fact after analytic continuation they turn out to be multivalued functions: the obstruction to the global existence of such functions is measured by some monodromy groups. In the case when the abelian scheme is endowed with a finite surjective modular map onto some suitable universal family of abelian varieties, we show that the relative monodromy group of the abelian logarithm is non-trivial and of full rank. As a consequence we deduce a new proof of Manin's kernel theorem and of the algebraic independence of the coordinates of abelian logarithms with respect to the coordinates of periods. (Joint work with Paolo Dolce, Westlake University.)