Patterns of predator neophobia: a meta-analytic review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Neophobia, the fear of novel stimuli, plays a major role in animal ecology. Here, we review studies on predator neophobia and explore its underlying patterns within an ecological framework. Predator neophobia is typically assessed by observing behaviours in novel areas that bring potential risk from unknown predators, or by observing behaviours towards certain kinds of objects and odours that are novel. We conducted a literature review across taxa, surveying research on baseline and induced neophobia versus controls. We calculated effect sizes for the intensity of neophobic responses, and categorized data according to six factors (taxa, age class, background type, trophic position, test cue type and experimental treatment type). While accounting for each of the other factors, we found that baseline neophobia was stronger among birds and mammals, and towards novel areas, relative to other taxa and cue types. Baseline neophobia was lower for wild-caught animals and for those that were higher in trophic position, compared with those reared in captivity and from lower trophic levels. By contrast, induced neophobia was similar in intensity across taxa, background types and testing cue types, while again being lower among upper trophic-level members and among juvenile animals. Although induced neophobia occurred across all treatment types, brain lesions induced stronger neophobia than predation risk or social isolation. We discuss potential mechanisms underlying these results and highlight gaps in the literature.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.026 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.013 | 0.013 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".