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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Melissa BatesonORCiD, Kristina Pascual
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Copyright: © 2025 Miller et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Neophobia, or aversion to novelty, is important for adaptability and survival as it influences the ways in which animals navigate risk and interact with their environments. Across individuals, species and other taxonomic levels, neophobia is known to vary considerably, but our understanding of the wider ecological drivers of neophobia is hampered by a lack of comparative multispecies studies using standardized methods. Here, we utilized the ManyBirds Project, a Big Team Science large-scale collaborative open science framework, to pool efforts and resources of 129 collaborators at 77 institutions from 24 countries worldwide across six continents. We examined both difference scores (between novel object test and control conditions) and raw data of latency to touch familiar food in the presence (test) and absence (control) of a novel object among 1,439 subjects from 136 bird species across 25 taxonomic orders incorporating lab, field, and zoo sites. We first demonstrated that consistent differences in neophobia existed among individuals, among species, and among other taxonomic levels in our dataset, rejecting the null hypothesis that neophobia is highly plastic at all taxonomic levels with no evidence for evolutionary divergence. We then tested for effects of ecological factors on neophobia, including diet, sociality, habitat, and range, while accounting for phylogeny. We found that (i) species with more specialist diets were more neophobic than those with more generalist diets, providing support for the Neophobia Threshold Hypothesis; (ii) migratory species were also more neophobic than nonmigratory species, which supports the Dangerous Niche Hypothesis. Our study shows that the evolution of avian neophobia has been shaped by ecological drivers and demonstrates the potential of Big Team Science to advance our understanding of animal behavior.
Author(s): Miller R, Slipogor V, Caspar KR, Lois-Milevicich J, Soulsbury C, Reber SA, Mettke-Hofmann C, Lambert M, Ashton BJ, Auersperg AMI, Bateson M, Belle S, Bilcik B, Biondi LM, Bonadonna F, Brucks D, Butler MW, Caro SP, Charrier M, Chatelin T, Ching J, Clayton NS, Cluver BJ, Cochran EB, Cornero F, Danby E, Danel S, Darwich M, Davies JR, de la Colina A, Fischer D, Fiser O, Foitzick F, Galluccio EC, Garcia-Co C, Garcia-Pelegrin E, George I, Gladow K-P, Gomez RO, Grewer A, Grice K, Guillette LM, Hallihan DC, Harrington KJ, Heer F, Henry C, Hodova V, Hoeschele M, Houdelier C, de Aldecoa PI, Iyasere OS, Kanemitsu Y, Khodadadi M, Khong D, Kimball MG, Klappert AN, Koch LN, Konig von Borstel UU, Kost'al L, Krasheninnikova A, Kubikova L, Lambert CT, Lameris DW, Lampert CG, Larousse O, Lattin CR, Li Z, Lindenmeier M, Lister DA, Mackenzie JA, Mainz S, Masri D, Massen JJM, Mohr L, Muller W, Nealen PM, Nieder A, Novac A, Cavalcante NP, Pascual K, Pascual-Guardia C, Patel A, Pichova K, Pilenga C, Pretot L, Quinn JL, Racevska E, Reboreda JC, Reynolds S, Ridley AR, Rossler T, Ruiz-Raya F, Salas M, Saldanha BC, Santiago SM, Schloglova N, Seatriz G, Serrano-Davies E, Shair Ali EG, Sirovnik J, Skalna Z, Slocombe KE, Soma M, Srdoc T, Stanescu S, Syrova M, Taylor AH, Templeton CN, Thompson K, Trigo S, Troisi CA, Urhan U, Valbert M, van Oers K, Velando A, Verbruggen F, Verkleij JW, Vernouillet A, Verspeek J, Vesely P, von Bayern AMP, Waalders E, Whittaker BA, Williamson ER, Wilson VAD, Winfield MA, Wittek N, Yeung KKL, Zanutto JA
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: PLoS Biology
Year: 2025
Volume: 23
Issue: 10
Online publication date: 14/10/2025
Acceptance date: 01/09/2025
Date deposited: 27/10/2025
ISSN (electronic): 1545-7885
Publisher: Public Library of Science
URL: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003394
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3003394
Data Access Statement: The full data set (including species with 600-second trial cut off), final analysis data set (removing species with 600-second trial cut off) and R coding script are available on: Figshare https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.27324972. We have also included the numerical values and R coding scripts underlying all relevant figures (available via this Figshare link).
PubMed id: 41086223
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