Covid-related surge in global wild bird feeding: Implications for biodiversity and human-nature interaction

feeding, which may vary widely across countries with interest in bird feeding as measured through Google Trends. An appreciation of biodiversity is an important predictor for supporting conservation and environmental issues [49], yet public understanding of biodiversity is generally poor [50]. For example, a study from Switzerland found that people overestimated the number of species in their country by a factor of 30 [47]. Our paper shows that even though people may lack formal scientific knowledge of species richness, they may be more attuned than we give them credit for because bird feeding responses were higher in areas with more bird species richness. This suggests that exposure of people to wild birds through feeding may have long-term positive consequences for both human well-being and conservation through pro-environmental activi- ties [5, 10]. Given the global scale of this phenomenon, we recommend further investigations, especially in the southern hemisphere [25]. Supporting information S1 File. (DOCX) Author Contributions Conceptualization: Jacqueline Doremus, Liqing Li. Data curation: Jacqueline Doremus, Liqing Li. Formal analysis: Jacqueline Doremus, Liqing Li. Investigation: Jacqueline Doremus, Liqing Li, Darryl Jones. Methodology: Jacqueline Doremus, Liqing Li. Project administration: Jacqueline Doremus. Resources: Darryl Jones. Supervision: Jacqueline Doremus. Validation: Jacqueline Doremus, Liqing Li, Darryl Jones. Visualization: Jacqueline Doremus, Liqing Li. Writing – original draft: Jacqueline Doremus, Liqing Li, Darryl Jones.

Writing – review & editing: Jacqueline Doremus, Liqing Li, Darryl Jones. References 1. Jones D. The Birds at My Table: Why we feed birds and why it matters 2018 Mar 15. Cornell University Press. 2. Schuetz JG, Johnston A. Characterizing the cultural niches of North American birds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2019 May 28; 116(22):10868–73. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas. 1820670116 PMID: 30988189 3. Jones DN, James Reynolds S. Feeding birds in our towns and cities: a global research opportunity. Journal of Avian Biology. 2008 May; 39(3):265–71. 4. Shanahan DF, Fuller RA, Bush R, Lin BB, Gaston KJ. The health benefits of urban nature: how much do we need?. BioScience. 2015 May 1; 65(5):476–85. 5. Keniger LE, Gaston KJ, Irvine KN, Fuller RA. What are the benefits of interacting with nature?. Interna- tional Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2013 Mar; 10(3):913–35. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/ijerph10030913 PMID: 23466828 PLOS ONE Covid-related surge in global wild bird feeding PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287116 August 2, 2023 12 / 15