A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia

Miller, R ORCID: 0000-0003-2996-9571, Šlipogor, V, Caspar, KR, Lois-Milevicich, J, Soulsbury, C, Reber, SA, Mettke-Hofmann, C ORCID: 0000-0003-3874-5035, Lambert, M, Ashton, BJ, Auersperg, AMI, Bateson, M, Belle, S, Bilčík, B, Biondi, LM, Bonadonna, F, Brucks, D, Butler, MW, Caro, SP, Charrier, M, Chatelin, T et al (2025) A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia. PLOS Biology, 23 (10). e3003394-e3003394. ISSN 1544-9173

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Abstract

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.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	06 Biological Sciences; 07 Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences; 11 Medical and Health Sciences; Developmental Biology; 30 Agricultural, veterinary and food sciences; 31 Biological sciences; 32 Biomedical and clinical sciences
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
Divisions:	Biological and Environmental Sciences (from Sep 19)
Publisher:	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date of acceptance:	1 September 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	16 October 2025
Date Deposited:	16 Oct 2025 15:37
Last Modified:	16 Oct 2025 15:45
DOI or ID number:	10.1371/journal.pbio.3003394
Editors:	Patricelli, GL
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27359

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