ManyBirds Project, Rachael Miller, Vedrana Šlipogor, Kai R. Caspar, Jimena Lois‐Milevicich, Carl D. Soulsbury, Stephan A. Reber, Claudia Mettke‐Hofmann, Megan L. Lambert, Benjamin J. Ashton, Alice M. I. Auersperg, Melissa Bateson, Solenne Belle, Boris Bilčı́k, Laura M. Biondi, Francesco Bonadonna, Désirée Brucks, Michael W. Butler, Samuel P. Caro, Marion Charrier, Tiffany Chatelin, Johnathan Ching, Nicola S. Clayton, Benjamin J. Cluver, Ella B. Cochran, Francesca M. Cornero, Emily Danby, Samara Danel, Martina Darwich, James R. Davies, Alicia de la Colina, Dominik Fischer, Ondřej Fišer, Florencia Foitzick, Edward Galluccio, Clara García-Có, Elias Garcia‐Pelegrin, Isabelle George, Kai‐Philipp Gladow, Raúl O. Gómez, Anna Grewer, Katie Grice, Lauren M. Guillette, Devon C. Hallihan, Katie J. Harrington, Frauke Heer, Chloe Henry, Vladimira Hodova, Marisa Hoeschele, Cécilia Houdelier, Paula Ibáñez de Aldecoa, O.S. Iyasere, Yuka Kanemitsu, Mina Khodadadi, Duc Khong, Melanie G. Kimball, Ariana N. Klappert, Lucy N. Koch, Uta König von Borstel, Ľubor Košťál, Anastasia Krasheninnikova, Ľubica Kubíková, Connor T. Lambert, Daan W. Laméris, Courtenay G. Lampert, Oceane Larousse, Christine R. Lattin, Zhongqiu Li, Michael Lindenmeier, Debbie Lister, Julia A. Mackenzie, Selina Mainz, Danna F. Masri, Jorg J. M. Massen, Laurenz Mohr, Wendt Müller, Paul M. Nealen, Andreas Nieder, Aurèle Novac, Nínive Paes Cavalcante, Kristina Pascual, Carla Pascual-Guàrdia, Ayushi Patel, Katarína Pichová, Cristina Pilenga, Laurent Prétôt, John L. Quinn, Elena Račevska, Juan C. Reboreda, S.A. Reynolds, Amanda R. Ridley, Theresa Rößler, Francisco Ruiz‐Raya, Marina Salas, Beatriz C. Saldanha, Sebastián M. Santiago, Nikola Schlöglová, Gia Seatriz, Eva Serrano‐Davies, Eva G. Shair Ali
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.