New amazing open Postdoc position, w/t opportunities to 1) get closely involved in our next @themanybirds.bsky.social study on innovation and problem-solving; 2) work with @ecobird.bsky.social on avian innovation, cognition & invasiveness. Advert: www.ugent.be/en/work/scie...
New amazing open Postdoc position, w/t opportunities to 1) get closely involved in our next @themanybirds.bsky.social study on innovation and problem-solving; 2) work with @ecobird.bsky.social on avian innovation, cognition & invasiveness. Advert: www.ugent.be/en/work/scie...
🐦 EcoBird is hiring a Postdoc in animal cognition!
Join us + @themanybirds.bsky.social to investigate innovation & problem-solving in birds.
📅 Start: as early as Jan 2026
🌍 Funded through UGent’s international mobility scheme
More info & how to apply ↓
www.ugent.be/en/work/scie...
This was an amazing project led by the @themanybirds.bsky.social
A similar Behavioural test was done across over 130 bird species! Species with a more specialist diet and migratory species were more afraid of novelty near there familiar food source.
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Great to work with you and your team, Marisa!
Thanks for sharing, Roli. And big thank you to you and your team at PLOS Biology for an efficient and constructive peer review and publication process, and for helping to support (our) big team science efforts.
Always a pleasure working with you, Vedrana! Thanks for all that you do :)
Loved being involved in this project with so many others! Including the birds at York Bird of Prey Centre 🦅🦉 it’s super excited to see it published - a brilliant leadership team! 👏
My first (and definitely not last!) contribution to a Big Team Science effort! 🌟
It was such an incredible, enriching, and fun experience — I learned so much ❤️ So thankful to the amazing leadership team who welcomed me! @drrmiller.bsky.social @vedranaslipogor.bsky.social @nomascus.bsky.social @stephanreber.bsky.social @cds-york.bsky.social Megan Lambert & Claudia Mettke-Hofmann
New paper out in PLoS Biology! A large international collaboration from the ManyBirds project, looking at variation in neophobia across a wide range of avian species globally. Delighted that the magpies were part of this large and diverse dataset!
Great to work with you, Vanessa and Basel Zoo!
Thank you so much!
Left: Examples of novel objects used. Each black/white bar is 5 cm long. The objects ranged in size from a third to half the size of the subjects: (a) Southern cassowary, Casuarius casuarius, (b) Moluccan eclectus, Eclectus roratus, (c) Rüppell’s vulture, Gyps rueppelli, (d) gray-winged trumpeter, Psophia crepitans, (e) common waxbill, Estrilda astrild. Right: Secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius) at Adlerwarte Berlebeck, Germany, interacting with a novel object. Image credit Kai Caspar.
Fear of novelty varies across species & individuals, impacting adaptability & survival. @themanybirds.bsky.social @drrmiller.bsky.social &co assess #neophobia in 1400 subjects from 136 #bird species, identifying phylogenetic influences & broad ecological drivers @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4haLEsN
Wonderful to see this project published! We were glad to contribute a small part to this impressive collaborative effort through ECoBird.
⚠️ PAPER ALERT!
Stoked to be part of @themanybirds.bsky.social 1st paper on the evolutionary correlates of #neophobia in #birds on @plosbiology.org
Contributing to this BTS project has been a truly enriching experience!
🦜🦉🐥🐧🦚🦅🦩🦆🪿
Kudos to @drrmiller.bsky.social for leading this titanic effort 💪🏻
Great to work with you, Christine!
Such a pleasure to work with you, Ondrej!
So excited that our first major empirical @themanybirds.bsky.social paper is now out in @plosbiology.org!
Leading this big team science project, with our excellent core leadership team, is a labour of love for me, delighted to see our hard work over the past 4 years has reached this milestone!
Hello, thank you - you can find all species listed in our supplementary information (data files and site information)
Big thank you to our ManyBirds core leadership team: @drrmiller.bsky.social, Megan Lambert, @vedranaslipogor.bsky.social, @nomascus.bsky.social, @jimeloism.bsky.social, Carl Soulsbury, @stephanreber.bsky.social, Claudia Mettke-Hofmann - and to all of our collaborators!
The #ManyBirds Project shows how big team open science approaches can uncover hidden patterns in animal behaviour and evolution, complementing critical in-depth single-lab work.
Huge thanks to everyone involved across six continents 🌍💛 More info & how to join future studies: 👉 www.themanybirds.com
Birds tested in groups were more neophobic than those tested alone - likely waiting for others to take the risk first!
And individuals showed consistent behaviour over time, suggesting neophobia is a stable behavioural trait.
Two main ecological factors predicted neophobia:
🥗 Dietary specialisation – species with narrower diets were more fearful.
🧭 Migratory behaviour – migratory species were more cautious.
➡️ Supporting both the Neophobia Threshold & Dangerous Niche Hypotheses.
Across 1,439 birds from 136 species and 25 avian orders, we used standardised tests:
familiar food was presented with and without a novel object.
⏱️ Longer hesitation = higher neophobia.
Flamingos were cautious, falcons bold - big differences across species!
(Photo credit: @jimeloism.bsky.social)
Neophobia - the fear of novelty - shapes how animals balance risk and opportunity.
Too much caution can limit flexibility, but too little can be dangerous.
We asked: why do some bird species fear new things more than others? 🐧🦅
🐦 Exciting news! Our new paper is out in PLOS Biology:
“A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.”
Led by the #ManyBirds Project - 129 researchers, 82 institutions, 24 countries 🌍
🔗 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
@themanybirds.bsky.social
Stay tuned for a very exciting update coming shortly from the ManyBirds Project! Eeek!
Very cool to see results from the big collaborative effort Many Birds @themanybirds.bsky.social
@drrmiller.bsky.social #CO3_2025 🧪🐤🐦🦜🦆
A reminder about our OPEN CALL for submission of potential future ManyBirds studies: forms.gle/Qk4hZ6N6DxQB.... Please see link for all info on the process and planned review criteria. Deadline for submission is 31 May 2025. We welcome new ManyBirds collaborators to future studies!
Congrats to Dr. Rachael Miller @Dr_Rmiller @drrmiller.bsky.social for receiving the @ComparativeCog Society Early Career Award!
Rachel will give her talk "Avian cognition and behaviour: from fundamental to applied" at #CO3_2025 in Albuquerque in March.
