Meeting Abstract

P1-46    Is spatial neophobia correlated with object neophobia in wild-caught house sparrows (Passer domesticus)? Kimball, MG*; Ebrahim, SG; Gautreaux, EB; Kelly, TR; Lattin, CR; Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA; Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA; Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA; Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA; Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA mkimba6@lsu.edu

Neophobia - an aversion to new objects, foods, and environments - is a personality trait that affects the ability of wildlife to adapt to new challenges and opportunities. Novel object and novel food trials have been frequently used to assess neophobia, and our previous work demonstrated that responses to these different tests were correlated in wild-caught house sparrows in a lab environment. However, often missing from neophobia studies is an evaluation of whether an animal’s response to feeding-oriented neophobia tests reflects its response to other kinds of neophobia tests. In this study, we assessed whether an individual’s willingness to explore a novel environment was significantly correlated with its willingness to feed when a novel object was placed on, in, or near the familiar food dish. We exposed birds to a novel environment (an adjacent cage with identical perches and sand bath as the home cage, but placed in different locations, n=2/bird) by creating a small opening (~5 cm.) in a cage divider on the left or right of the home cage, and time to first enter and total time spent in the novel environment were quantified using video recordings. In control trials, cage dividers were opened and immediately closed (n=2/bird). In novel object trials, birds were exposed to a new novel object with the food dish (n=3/bird) or just the food dish as a control (n=2/bird) and time to approach and feed was determined. Preliminary results indicate that time spent in a novel environment and time to enter a novel environment were not correlated with an individual’s response to novel object trials. Therefore, spatial neophobia and object neophobia in the context of feeding may represent two distinct traits that involve separate decision-making processes and functional circuits in the brain.