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

Copyright: \ua9 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

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

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

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

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

Complement Activation in the Disease Course of Coronavirus Disease 2019 and Its Effects on Clinical Outcomes

Background: Excessive activation of immune responses in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is considered to be related to disease severity, complications, and mortality rate. The complement system is an important component of innate immunity and can stimulate inflammation, but its role in COVID-19 is unknown. Methods: A prospective, longitudinal, single center study was performed in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Plasma concentrations of complement factors C3a, C3c, and terminal complement complex (TCC) were assessed at baseline and during hospital admission. In parallel, routine laboratory and clinical parameters were collected from medical files and analyzed. Results: Complement factors C3a, C3c, and TCC were significantly increased in plasma of patients with COVID-19 compared with healthy controls (P<.05). These complement factors were especially elevated in intensive care unit patients during the entire disease course (P<.005 for C3a and TCC). More intense complement activation was observed in patients who died and in those with thromboembolic events. Conclusions: Patients with COVID-19 demonstrate activation of the complement system, which is related to disease severity. This pathway may be involved in the dysregulated proinflammatory response associated with increased mortality rate and thromboembolic complications. Components of the complement system might have potential as prognostic markers for disease severity and as therapeutic targets in COVID-19. © 2020 The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America