Behavioral innovation correlates with broader climatic niche breadths in birds

Behavioral innovation, defined as the ability to exhibit novel behaviors that may contribute to problem-solving and adaptability, has been increasingly recognized as a key factor in species' resilience to environmental shifts. Here we investigate the association between behavioral innovation and climatic niche breadths (the range of climatic conditions a species can tolerate) across 9338 bird species, representing the majority of extant birds, exploring its potential role in coping with climatic variability. We quantified climatic niches using high-resolution spatial and bioclimatic data to capture both species-overall extremes and among-locality variations. By using Bayesian Phylogenetic Generalized Linear Mixed Models, we analyzed correlations between these realized climatic niche breadths and two metrics of behavioral innovation—innovativeness (the propensity to exhibit novel behaviors) and innovation rate (the frequency of such behaviors)—while incorporating ecological and life-history traits as covariates. Innovativeness significantly correlates with broader climatic niche breadths for both temperature and precipitation. In contrast, innovation rate shows only a positive association with precipitation niche breadth and no significant correlation with any temperature niche metrics. Our findings reveal that while innovativeness significantly correlates with broader climatic niche breadths in birds, further variation in climatic niche breadth among innovative species is minimally associated with their innovation rates. This relationship is linked to a distinct spatial pattern: for temperature, innovative species exhibit broader niches alongside both wider within-locality tolerance and greater variation among localities; for precipitation, broader niches are associated primarily with greater variation among localities, despite having narrower within-locality niches. These results highlight that integrating innovativeness into climate vulnerability assessments could better capture resilience, complementing established predictors.