People and Nature. 2023;00:1–15.  | 1wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pan3 Received: 2 February 2023  | Accepted: 6 May 2023 DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10497 R E S E A R C H A R T I C L E B i o p h o b i a : A H i d d e n D i m e n s i o n o f H u m a n - N a t u r e R e l a t i o n s h i p s The searchscape of fear: A global analysis of internet search trends for biophobias Ricardo A. Correia1,2,3  | Stefano Mammola4,5 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2023 The Authors. People and Nature published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society. 1Biodiversity Unit, University of Turku, Turku, Finland 2Helsinki Lab of Interdisciplinary Conservation Science (HELICS), Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 3Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 4Molecular Ecology Group (MEG), Water Research Institute (CNR- IRSA), National Research Council, Verbania Pallanza, Italy 5Laboratory for Integrative Biodiversity Research (LIBRe), Finnish Museum of Natural History (LUOMUS), University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Correspondence Ricardo A. Correia Email: raheco@utu.fi Funding information Academy of Finland, Grant/Award Number: 348352; Koneen Säätiö, Grant/ Award Number: 202101976 Handling Editor: Masashi Soga Abstract 1. Human relationships with nature may sometimes manifest through fear, disgust and other disease- avoidance mechanisms. While there is an evolutionary utility to these so- called ‘biophobias’, many people exhibit phobic responses towards organisms that pose no tangible threats, potentially leading to excessive anxi- ety and avoidance of interactions with nature. Understanding the drivers of the prevalence and spread of biophobias in modern societies is, therefore, a growing concern. 2. Here, we posit that online information- seeking patterns may reveal general in- sights into biophobias. Using a culturomics approach, we gathered temporal (2004– 2022) and country- level data on the volume of internet searches for 25 biophobias, as well as 25 general phobias acting as a benchmark group. We ex- plored temporal trends in the volume of search for each biophobias and mod- elled relationships between search volume for biophobias and five country- level variables. 3. We observed a steady increase in online search volume for biophobias between 2004 and 2022. Yet, there were marked differences in individual trends, with 17 biophobias showing positive, three negative and five stationary temporal trends. Arachnophobia (fear of spiders) attracted the most interest, followed by myso- phobia (fear of microbes) and parasitophobia (fear of parasites). 4. The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Mexico and India re- corded wide interest in most biophobias, whereas 49% of countries showed no search volume for any biophobia. Search patterns for biophobias were strongly associated with the percentage of urban population, urban population growth and the number of extant venomous species in a given country. Conversely, search patterns for biophobias were weakly correlated with the incidence of anxiety dis- orders in a country's population and the likelihood of encounters with venomous animals. 5. Our results provide quantitative support to the hypothesis that biophobias are broadly prevalent and possibly increasing as a result of widespread urbanisation and loss of experiences with nature. We suggest that people affected by biophobic 2  |   People and Nature CORREIA and MAMMOLA 1  |  INTRODUC TION The renowned naturalist Edward O. Wilson (1929– 2021) coined the term ‘biophilia’ to describe ‘the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life’ (Wilson, 1984). The biophilia hypothesis posits that humans, by sharing an evolutionary history with nature, have developed an innate affinity for the natural world (Wilson, 1984, 2013). Widespread evidence suggests that frequent exposure to nature provides various benefits to human health and well- being (Bratman et al., 2019; Keniger et al., 2013; Maes et al., 2021). At the same time, increased awareness of and connec- tion with the natural world may be central to driving motivation to- wards biological conservation (Barragan- Jason et al., 2022; Simaika & Samways, 2010; Soga & Gaston, 2021; Zhang et al., 2014). Yet, human relationships with nature are not always positive. In our ancestral past, nature was a prime source of danger— from the risk of eating a toxic fungus, through the fear of being chased by a large carnivore, to the danger of encountering a venomous ani- mal. Therefore, it has been proposed that humans may have evolved innate behavioural and physiological responses to threat- relevant stimuli associated with nature (Gerdes et al., 2009; LoBue, 2010; Yorzinski et al., 2014). These responses often manifest through strong negative feelings such as fear, disgust and other disease- avoidance mechanisms (Davey, 2011), and can be generally referred to as ‘biophobias’ (Soga et al., 2023; Box 1). Evidence suggests that the incidence of biophobias is high, and possibly growing, in industrialised societies, even though our mod- ern lifestyle entails only limited hazards related to wildlife. For exam- ple, while wildlife- related fatalities are extremely rare events (e.g. in the United States; Conover, 2019), animal phobias (zoophobias) have one of the highest lifetime prevalence (3.3%– 5.7%) among specific phobias (Eaton et al., 2018; Wardenaar et al., 2017). Interestingly, many people exhibit phobic responses towards organisms that are not harmful or towards organisms that are geographically far, suggesting a strong cultural component to some of these phobias (Box 1). It has been argued that the rise of biophobias in contemporary industrialised societies may be driven by a progressive disconnection with nature (Beery et al., 2023; Miller, 2005; Zsido et al., 2022), for example as a result of ongoing urbanisation (Fukano & Soga, 2021; Hand et al., 2017) or due to a growing tendency for youth and adults alike to be increasingly sedentary and bound to indoor spaces (Beyer disorders may be using the Internet as a key venue to seek relevant information to appraise their condition and identify coping mechanisms. These findings have broad ramifications for understanding and mitigating human– wildlife conflicts and the prevalence of widespread biophobic sentiments in modern societies. K E Y W O R D S Arachnophobia, biophilia, Google Trends, online searches, Stress and Coping theory, urbanisation- disgust hypothesis, venomous animals, zoophobia BOX 1 The prevalence and origin of specific phobias and biophobias Specific phobias are anxiety disorders involving an intense, persistent and irrational fear of something that poses lit- tle or no actual threat (Eaton et al., 2018). According to a 2001– 2011 cross- national survey of 22 low- to high- income countries (Wardenaar et al., 2017), the median lifetime prevalence rate of specific phobias is 7.4% (9.8% in females and 4.9% in males). Some of the most common specific phobias involve the irrational fear of heights, fly- ing, closed spaces and different elements of the natural world (biophobias) (Eaton et al., 2018). Among the biopho- bias, those related to animals (zoophobias) are some of the most widespread, including arachnophobia (fear of spiders, largely considered to be the most common animal phobia; Mammola et al., 2017), entomophobia (fear of insects), ophidiophobia (fear of snakes), cynophobia (fear of dogs) and ornithophobia (fear of birds). While the evolutionary utility of fear is widely accepted (e.g. Adolphs, 2013; Marks & Nesse, 1994), the nature of phobias is more controversial owing to their detrimental effect on human health, causing undue stress and often preceding the onset of other mental disorders (Wardenaar et al., 2017). Studies based on family and twins (e.g. Hettema et al., 2001; Shimada- Sugimoto et al., 2015) sug- gest a moderate to high role of genetic factors in the aetiol- ogy of phobias, whereas the role of environmental factors and information learning pathways remains more challeng- ing to quantify [see Coelho & Purkis, 2009 for an overview of influential theories]. For example, while intuitively the fear for spiders has a clear evolutionary origin associated with the disease- avoidance disgust response (Davey, 2011; Mulkens et al., 1996), some authors have questioned its evolutionary roots based on the fact that only a small per- centage of spiders actually pose a threat to humans. Indeed, diverse cultural factors and learning experiences seem to be involved in the origin and persistence of arachnopho- bia in modern societies (Davey, 1994; Hoffman et al., 2019; Mammola, Nanni, et al., 2020; Merckelbach et al., 1996). 25758314, 0, D ow nloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10497 by University of Turku, W iley Online Library on [07/08/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on W iley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License     |  3People and NatureCORREIA and MAMMOLA et al., 2018; Guthold et al., 2010). This loss of human– nature interac- tions has been formalised as the ‘extinction of experience’ (Gaston & Soga, 2020; Soga & Gaston, 2016) and its causal role in the emer- gence of biophobias is under intense scrutiny (Soga et al., 2023; Zsido et al., 2022). Furthermore, a distorted perception of risk can be exac- erbated by how wildlife is framed by different information sources, as seen, for example, for large carnivores (Bombieri et al., 2018; Nanni et al., 2020), vultures (Ballejo et al., 2021), sharks (Sabatier & Huveneers, 2018; Whitenack et al., 2022), spiders (Mammola et al., 2022a, 2022b; Mammola, Nanni, et al., 2020) and bats (López- Baucells et al., 2018; MacFarlane & Rocha, 2020; Nanni et al., 2022). Here, we explored temporal and spatial patterns of internet searches related to specific biophobias, as well as to other common psychological phobias acting as a benchmark, to assess information- seeking behaviour related to nature phobic disorders. Based on the Stress and Coping theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), people affected by phobic disorders may seek to appraise their condition and iden- tify coping mechanisms by searching for relevant information online (details in Section 2.1). Therefore, we posit that online information- seeking patterns may reveal insights into the prevalence and distribu- tion of biophobias in modern societies. Specifically, we hypothesise that internet searches for biophobias may be increasing over time and are likely to be more prevalent in countries with a higher proportion of the population living in urban environments, particularly those with a larger number of extant species that are potentially harmful to humans. 2  |  MATERIAL S AND METHODS 2.1  |  Theoretical framework A phobia is an anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object, circumstance or situation (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). A biophobia (Box 1) is a form of specific phobia that is driven by fear of a living organism. Phobic reactions, includ- ing those triggered by living organisms or their representations, can be characterised as stressful events caused by an external stimulus and leading to extreme reactions driven by anxiety or fear. These reactions may relate to concerns about harm from a feared object or organism, concern about embarrassment or fear of the consequences related to the exposure (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). Phobic reactions tend to have a negative impact on an individual's well- being and usually lead to the development of specific psycho- logical, physiological or behavioural mechanisms to cope with fu- ture events. According to the Stress and Coping theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), the development of coping mechanisms in reaction to a stressful event happens in two sequential stages: (i) cognitive appraisal of the situation, and (ii) assessment of coping resources. In the first stage of the process, individuals will process and categorise the event and its various facets with respect to its significance for present and future well- being. Individuals may then develop cog- nitive, psychological and behavioural efforts to master, reduce or tolerate the demands of a future similar stressful interaction. The theory of Stress and Coping has been widely applied, particularly in medical contexts where patients are faced with a distressing medi- cal diagnosis or life- threatening events. Examples of the application of this theory in a medical context include patients faced with car- diac disease (Anttila et al., 2021; Holahan et al., 1997), cancer (Kang et al., 2020; Lambert et al., 2009), obesity (Ajibewa et al., 2021; Walsh et al., 2021) and particularly psychological anxiety and pho- bia (Liu et al., 2021; Tams et al., 2018). It has also been deployed in nonmedical contexts, including for example research focusing on coping with work (Dewe et al., 1993; Van den Brande et al., 2016) or environment- related stress (Chawla, 2020; Ojala, 2016). Information- seeking behaviour, also referred to as monitoring, is a common approach deployed as part of coping efforts (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Information seeking is thought to be deployed mostly by individuals adopting problem- focused approaches to cop- ing (handling stress by facing it head- on and taking action to resolve the underlying cause) when faced with uncertain situations (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980; van Ingen et al., 2016; van Zuuren & Wolfs, 1991). The opposite behaviour of blunting (information avoidance) is more commonly associated with emotion- focused coping (regulating feel- ings and emotional response to the problem instead of addressing the problem), although some authors argue otherwise (Shiloh & Orgler- Shoob, 2006). Given the widespread availability of informa- tion about a broad range of topics on the world wide web and other digital platforms, online information seeking is nowadays a common behaviour deployed by individuals seeking to develop coping strate- gies for stressful life events (van Ingen et al., 2016). Online information- seeking behaviour is also common in individ- uals suffering from mental and anxiety disorders (Chan et al., 2022). The dominant information needs of such individuals include addi- tional information about their general condition and more specific details about potential treatments or coping mechanisms (Chan et al., 2022; Liebherz et al., 2015). It seems plausible that similar be- haviours and needs may be observed in individuals suffering from various forms of biophobia as part of their coping strategy. For ex- ample, experimental evidence suggests arachnophobic individuals have an enhanced recall of spider- relevant information (Smith- Janik & Teachman, 2008). Based on this, we argue that people suffering from specific forms of biophobia are likely to seek information online In pursuit of consilience, Marks (2002) conceptualised the distinct models of fear acquisition as part of a continuum. On the one end of this continuum are innate reactions that manifest with no prior traumatic experience, such as the eye- blink reflex with the fast approach of an object towards the face. On the opposite end are situations that trigger an ad- verse reaction after a large quantity of learning experiences has been acquired. Yet, where different biophobias stand along this continuum remains a largely open question (Soga et al., 2023). Box 1 (Continued) 25758314, 0, D ow nloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10497 by University of Turku, W iley Online Library on [07/08/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on W iley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 4  |   People and Nature CORREIA and MAMMOLA about their anxiety to appraise their condition and identify coping or treatment mechanisms. If this is true, data from search engines should reflect this behaviour and provide insights on the temporal and spatial patterns of interest for specific biophobias that can be used to explore hypotheses about the links between urbanisation, nature exposure and the emergence and prevalence of biophobia in modern societies (Fukano & Soga, 2021; Soga et al., 2023). 2.2  |  Data collection We used a culturomics approach (Correia et al., 2021; Ladle et al., 2016) to explore information- seeking behaviour about bio- phobias online. Specifically, we obtained data from Google Trends (https://trends.google.com/trend s/), which allows users to collect data on relative search volume data for selected terms (i.e. keywords) or topics. Topic searches are implemented using previously defined topics recognised by Google's search engine based on their semantic knowledge graph. The main advantage of topic searches compared to keyword searches are that the latter tallies only searches contain- ing the keyword (e.g. apple, apple pie, and rotten apple), whereas the former includes also language variations of the same keyword (e.g. apple, manzana, and omena) and contextually related searches (e.g. what fruit keeps the doctor away?). Topic searches also have the advantage of helping to disentangle searches for similar keywords but referring to different topics (e.g. Arachnophobia the movie versus arachnophobia as a form of biophobia). Using topic searches, we extracted data on the relative volume of worldwide searches for 25 specific biophobias and 25 other common phobias acting as a benchmark group (Table 1). We ini- tially compiled a list of proposed biophobias from online sources (e.g. Wikipedia List of Phobias https://en.wikip edia.org/wiki/List_ of_phobias; Phobia Fandom Wiki https://phobia.fandom.com/wiki/ Phobia_wiki) and verified whether they were recognised by Google's knowledge graph as specific topics. For the analysis, we retained 25 specific biophobias recognised by Google's knowledge graph as topics and for which the context of searches matched the relevant biophobia (Correia, 2019). We then carried out a similar process for other phobias, selecting another 25 popular phobias ad- hoc for comparison. We obtained monthly data for the whole period of data availability, namely between January 2004 and November 2022 (i.e. 227 months). List of biophobias List of other phobias Acarophobia (fear of insects that cause itching) Acrophobia (fear of heights) Ailurophobia (fear of cats) Aerophobia (fear of flying) Alektorophobia (fear of chicken) Astraphobia (fear of thunder) Anthophobia (fear of flowers) Atychiphobia (fear of failure) Apiphobia (fear of bees) Autophobia (fear of isolation) Arachnophobia (fear of spiders) Cancerophobia (fear of cancer) Bovinophobia (fear of cows and bulls) Claustrophobia (fear of closed spaces) Chiroptophobia (fear of bats) Coulrophobia (fear of clowns) Cynophobia (fear of dogs) Dentophobia (fear of dentists) Entomophobia (fear of insects) Dysmorphophobia (fear of body defects) Equinophobia (fear of horses) Emetophobia (fear of vomiting) Herpetophobia (fear of reptiles or amphibians) Haphephobia (fear of being touched) Hylophobia (fear of forests) Hemophobia (fear of blood) Ichthyophobia (fear of fish) Hoplophobia (fear of guns) Musophobia (fear of rats) Iatrophobia (fear of doctors) Mycophobia (fear of mushrooms) Neophobia (fear of novelty) Myrmecophobia (fear of ants) Nosocomephobia (fear of hospitals) Mysophobia (fear of microbes) Nosophobia (fear of disease) Ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) Nyctophobia (fear of darkness) Ornithophobia (fear of birds) Pediophobia (fear of dolls) Parasitophobia (fear of parasites) Philophobia (fear of love) Ranidaphobia (fear of frogs) Social phobia (fear of social situations) Selacophobia (fear of sharks) Technophobia (fear of technology) Vermiphobia (fear of worms) Trypanophobia (fear of needles) Zoophobia (fear of animals) Trypophobia (fear of closely packed holes) TA B L E 1  List and description of phobias considered in the analysis. A detailed description of each phobia and its associated Google Knowledge Graph topic identifier are available as Supporting Information (Table S1). 25758314, 0, D ow nloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10497 by University of Turku, W iley Online Library on [07/08/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on W iley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License     |  5People and NatureCORREIA and MAMMOLA We carried out the data extraction following a procedure that allows for relative search volume to be comparable between top- ics (Adamo et al., 2022; Davies et al., 2018; Mammola, Riccardi, et al., 2020). Google Trends returns data with values between 0 and 100 as an indicator of relative search volume. For the sampled pe- riod, the maximum value of 100 represents the highest proportion of searches observed during any month and all other monthly values are rescaled relative to this maximum. Search volumes are therefore only comparable if rescaled to the same maximum value, and each search allows up to five topics simultaneously. To ensure the com- parability of relative search volumes between phobias after the first search, each search retained always one phobia in common with ear- lier searches. We rescaled the values between searches using the coefficient of a linear regression between the monthly values of the phobia present in both searches. We selected the phobia retained between searches iteratively, starting with the most searched pho- bia (Social phobia). This selection process considered only phobias where the regression between the values obtained in both searches returned an R2 value above 0.95, and among those fitting this crite- rion, we selected the phobia with the most nonzero values in both searches. This process ensures that a minimum amount of noise is in- troduced by the scaling process. We rescaled relative search values for general searches and also searches classified under the Health category by Google. 2.3  |  Data analysis We carried out all statistical analyses in R v4.2.2 (R Core Team, 2022). First, we explored the relationship between general and health- related searches for biophobias and other phobias. We calculated the average relative search volume over the 227 months of sampled data and calculated the Spearman's rank- order correlation between the average search volume of each phobia associated with general and health- related searches. Given the strong correlation between the results of both searches (see Section 3), we restricted subse- quent analyses to the results obtained from general searches as they include a broader range of information- seeking interests. Second, we explored temporal trends in search interest for bio- phobias and other phobias. We used nonparametric Mann– Kendall tests to detect the existence of significant temporal trends in the time series of relative search volume for the period sampled and Sen's slope to assess the direction of the observed trend. We cal- culated Mann– Kendall tests through the ‘MannKendall’ function in package Kendall v.2.2.1 (McLeod, 2011) and Sen's slopes using the function ‘sens.slope’ from package trend v.1.1.4 (Pohlert, 2020). We calculated these tests for each phobia separately, and also for the sum of interest in biophobias, other common phobias (i.e. bench- mark group), and for the ratio between the two. Finally, we assessed the presence of search interest for each biophobia independently at the country level. Data available from Google Trends currently allows only the comparison of search volume for multiple topics within a country or for a single topic between countries; therefore, we focused this analysis on whether search interest for individual phobias was recorded in each country. Using regression analysis, we tested whether individual differences among the search volume for different countries could be related to five explanatory variables: (i) percentage of urban population, (ii) urban population growth, (iii) incidence of contact with venomous animals per 100,000 individuals, (iv) percentage of population with an anxiety disorder and (v) extant venomous species. We sourced data on the percentage of human population and urban population growth from the World Bank Database using the function ‘wb_data’ from package wbstats v.1.0.1 (Piburn, 2020). We collected data on the incidence of contact with venomous animals and the per- centage of the population with anxiety disorders from the Global Burden of Disease Network (2021) via Our World in Data (https:// ourwo rldin data.org). We obtained data on extant venomous spe- cies per country from the Living Hazards Database (https://www. acq.osd.mil/eie/afpmb/ livin ghaza rds.html). We centred explanatory variables to zero based on the arithmetic mean and standardised them (z- transformed) to one standard deviation (Schielzeth, 2010). We modelled the relationship between the number of biophobias searched for in each country and the five predictors above with a generalised linear model. Prior to model fitting, we carried out data exploration (Zuur et al., 2010) by visually checking the distribution of response and predictor variables and by confirming no major collinearity among predictors via pairwise Pearson's r correlations based on a threshold of |r| < 0.7 (Figure S1). Considering that our dependent variable cannot assume negative values, but was highly zero- inflated (49% of the countries showed no search volume for any biophobia), we specified a hurdle negative binomial model with the r package glmmTMB v.1.1.5 (Brooks et al., 2017). A hurdle model is a two- component mixture model consisting of a zero mass component and a positive observations component following a truncated count distribution (Feng, 2021); we specified a negative binomial model for the count model because there was overdispersion in the positive counts. Note that the output of our hurdle model is composed of two parts: (i) the estimates for a binary model that explains how the predictors affect the presence/absence of country- level searches for biophobias; and (ii) the estimates for a positive count model that investigates how the predictors explain differences in the volume of search across countries. We validated the model by inspecting resid- uals and fitted values using functions in the r package performance v.0.10.2 (Lüdecke et al., 2021). 3  |  RESULTS Our results suggest that the world wide web is indeed used as a source of information for people seeking knowledge about phobias as we recorded search interest for all of the 50 phobias explored (Figure 1). Social phobia (also known as social anxiety disorder) at- tracted by far the most interest among the phobias explored in this study, independently of the search context. Other frequent specific phobias such as trypophobia (fear or disgust of closely packed holes) 25758314, 0, D ow nloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10497 by University of Turku, W iley Online Library on [07/08/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on W iley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 6  |   People and Nature CORREIA and MAMMOLA and nyctophobia (fear of the dark) featured among those gather- ing the most search interest. Within the biophobias, arachnophobia (fear of spiders) attracted the most interest, followed by mysophobia (fear of microbes) and parasitophobia (fear of parasites). Searches for biophobias were generally less frequent than for other common pho- bias, even though search volumes for the most common biophobias were comparable to other common specific phobias, such as tryp- anophobia (fear of needles) or emetophobia (fear of vomiting). While the relative volume of searches differed slightly between the general and health- related searches (Figure 1), there was a high, significant correlation between the two contexts (Spearman's rho = 0.965, p- value < 0.001), suggesting that some phobias dominate public atten- tion across different search contexts. We observed a positive trend associated with increasing search volume for general searches of both biophobias (Mann– Kendall's tau = 0.336; p- value < 0.001) and other common psychological phobias (Mann– Kendall's tau = 0.503; p- value < 0.001) between 2004 and 2022, although the trend was stronger for the latter (Figure 2a,b). As a result, the proportion of searches associated with biophobias in relation to those associated with other pho- bias actually decreased over the sampled period (Mann– Kendall's tau = −0.428; p- value < 0.001; Figure 2c). We also observed marked differences in the trends associated with different forms of biopho- bia. From the set of 25 biophobias assessed, 17 showed a positive trend, three showed a negative trend and five a nonsignificant trend between 2004 and 2022 (Figure 3; Table S2). The number of biophobias with recorded search interest var- ied greatly between countries and showed a skewed distribution, with a few countries recording search interest for various bio- phobias and a large number of countries showing no search vol- ume for any biophobia (123 of 250; 49%; Figure 4b). The United States and the United Kingdom showed the highest number of biophobias with recorded search interest (24 of 25 biophobias assessed), followed by Australia (23), Canada, Mexico and India (22) (Figure 4a). At the country level, both the presence of search interest for biophobias and the number of biophobias with re- corded search volume were strongly associated with the per- centage of urban population, urban population growth and the number of extant venomous species (Figure 5; model estimates in Table S3). Conversely, the incidence of anxiety disorders in a country's population and encounters with venomous animals were only weakly related to either of the response variables. More in detail, countries with a higher number of extant venomous spe- cies had a higher probability to register search interest for bio- phobias (estimate ± std. error: 1.419 ± 0.304, p- value < 0.001), and showed search interest for more biophobias (estimate ± std. error: 0.378 ± 0.070, p- value < 0.001). A similar pattern was observed for the proportion of urban population, whereby countries with a larger share of the population living in urban environments were more likely (estimate ± std. error: 0.564 ± 0.203, p- value < 0.01) to show interest in biophobias and to search for more biopho- bias (estimate ± std. error: 0.265 ± 0.108, p- value < 0.05). Urban F I G U R E 1  Ranking of common psychological phobias based on relative search volume in the context of general (left panel) and health- related searches (right panel). Psychological phobias associated with elements of nature (biophobias) are highlighted in red. 25758314, 0, D ow nloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10497 by University of Turku, W iley Online Library on [07/08/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on W iley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License     |  7People and NatureCORREIA and MAMMOLA population growth showed a negative relationship with both the probability of recording search interest (estimate ± std. error: −0.761 ± 0.209, p- value < 0.001) and the number of biophobias searched (estimate ± std. error: −0.418 ± 0.108, p- value < 0.001). In fact, searches for a larger number of phobias tended to be concentrated in countries with large and more stable urban pop- ulations (Figure 6), where the main population shift from rural to urban areas is likely to have occurred earlier. The model explained 34% of the variation observed in the data. 4  |  DISCUSSION Our results confirm that online information- seeking behaviour is common for a wide range of phobias, including biophobias. We observed a strong correlation in worldwide search volume be- tween general and health- related searches for phobias, suggest- ing that the more popular phobias dominate online interest across a range of search contexts. The relative interest in the different phobias also aligns broadly with estimates of their occurrence in the global human population, suggesting that the frequency of information- seeking behaviour for each phobia may be repre- sentative of their prevalence across the globe. For example, social phobia is considered the most widespread anxiety disorder (Stein & Stein, 2008), and it was also the most commonly searched pho- bia online. Social phobia affects mostly younger individuals, hav- ing been reported in one of three individuals aged between 16 and 29 (Jefferies & Ungar, 2020), which may also help to justify its online search frequency given the larger participation of younger generations on the Internet (International Communication Union, 2022). Other common specific phobias such as acropho- bia and claustrophobia (Eaton et al., 2018) were among the top- searched phobias as well. Likewise, arachnophobia was the most searched biophobia online, confirming evidence in the psycho- logical literature which regards fear of spiders among the most prevalent biophobias, and indeed the most common in many con- texts (e.g. Polák et al., 2020; Zsido, 2017). Interestingly, this hints that the search volume for (bio)phobias on the Internet could be used as an easy- to- collect, inexpensive proxy for monitoring the relative prevalence, and spatial and temporal patterns for some of these pathologies— in line with previous work evaluating the potential of online data for monitoring and forecasting disease outbreaks (Amusa et al., 2022; Mavragani & Gkillas, 2020; Pelat et al., 2009). Beyond the differences in relative search volume between pho- bias, we also observed a general increase in the online search volume for biophobias and other phobias between 2004 and 2022. Search interest for biophobias increased less prominently than that directed at other phobias, but this pattern seems to be largely driven by the rapidly growing interest in social phobia compared to the other spe- cific phobias assessed in our study. On the one hand, social anxiety tends to be more prevalent in rural and semiurban settings (Jefferies & Ungar, 2020), and internet use in these areas is catching up with cities (International Communication Union, 2022), so this trend may F I G U R E 2  Temporal trends of relative search volume associated with specific biophobias (red) and other common psychological phobias (black). Panel (a) represents the relative search volume for both sets using the same scale, whereas panel (b) zooms in on biophobias to reveal the slight positive trend. Panel (c) represents the decreasing ratio of search volume for biophobias relative to that of other common psychological phobias. Points represent monthly search volume data obtained from Google Trends relative to the highest monthly value recorded across all topics (i.e. values are comparable between topics), whereas the dashed line represents the estimated temporal trend using the Thiel– Sen method. 25758314, 0, D ow nloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10497 by University of Turku, W iley Online Library on [07/08/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on W iley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 8  |   People and Nature CORREIA and MAMMOLA be partly explained by increasing internet access and representation of searches for social phobia in our sample. On the other hand, bio- phobia tends to be more frequent in urban areas with lower access to nature (Zhang et al., 2014), and the observed increase in search volume may be more indicative of a growing prevalence in society. We recognise that care should be taken when interpreting tem- poral trends observed in information- seeking behaviour (Correia et al., 2019; Ficetola, 2013) and other sources of information should be sought for additional evidence. Still, this result provides quantitative support to the belief that biophobias may be broadly prevalent in modern societies and possibly becoming more widely represented on the internet, for example through biophobic individ- uals that only recently gained internet access such as inhabitants of emerging urban areas or younger members of the public (Fukano & Soga, 2021; Soga et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2014). A similar assertion can be made towards nonbiophobias, and particularly social phobia, which is known to be increasingly prevalent worldwide (Jefferies & Ungar, 2020). F I G U R E 3  Temporal trends of relative search volume associated with each of the 25 specific biophobias assessed here. Points represent monthly search volume data obtained from Google Trends relative to the highest monthly value recorded for each topic (i.e. values are specific to each topic), whereas the dashed line represents the estimated temporal trend using the Thiel- Sen method. A summary table of temporal trend statistics for each biophobia is available in Supporting Information (Table S2). Silhouettes taken from PhyloPics 2.0 (http:// phylo pic.org/), except for Hylophobia taken from Clipart library (http://clipa rt-libra ry.com/). 25758314, 0, D ow nloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10497 by University of Turku, W iley Online Library on [07/08/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on W iley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License     |  9People and NatureCORREIA and MAMMOLA Arthropods featured prominently among the most prevalent biophobias (5 of 25 searched biophobias), all showing stationary or increasing temporal trends. Arachnophobia gathered the most search interest overall, but internet searches remained relatively stable throughout the sampled period. Other phobias related to arthropods, such as apiphobia and entomophobia, were less fre- quently searched for but showed a growing interest in recent years. Between 2004 and 2022, mysophobia (fear of germs) showed the steepest temporal increase in the relative volume of online searches. We observed a spike in the relative volume of searches for mysopho- bia concomitant with the onset of COVID- 19 pandemic in 2020, and search interest during this period greatly surpassed that of arach- nophobia. This result aligns with reports of newly formed obses- sions with dirt, germs and viruses during the COVID- 19 pandemic F I G U R E 4  Map (a) and distribution (b) of the number of biophobias with recorded search interest for each country. F I G U R E 5  Relationship between country- level search interest for biophobias and (i) percentage of urban population (a, f), (ii) urban population growth (b, g), (iii) incidence of contact with venomous animals per 100,000 individuals (c, h), (iv) percentage of population with an anxiety disorder (d, i) and (v) extant venomous species (e, j). Individual plots represent the relationship predicted by a zero- hurdle count model between each predictor variable and the probability of a country recording search interest for any biophobia (top row, a– e) or the number of biophobias with recorded search interest (bottom row, f– j). Variables with a significant effect (p- value ≤ 0.05) predicted by the model are highlighted in red (model results available in Table S3). 25758314, 0, D ow nloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10497 by University of Turku, W iley Online Library on [07/08/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on W iley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 10  |   People and Nature CORREIA and MAMMOLA outbreak (Abba- Aji et al., 2020; Alateeq et al., 2021). Vertebrates were also undisputed protagonists across biophobias, with mam- mals, reptiles, birds and fish cumulatively representing 12 of the 25 searched biophobias. Among the vertebrate- related biopho- bias, the most searched and fastest growing was cynophobia, the fear of dogs. This is perhaps unsurprising when considering the frequency of human– dog interactions in modern societies and the fact that dogs are highly ranked in online lists of deadliest animals to humans, alongside disease- transmitting mosquitoes and snakes (Forrester et al., 2018; Kamerow, 2014). Finally, plants and fungi were poorly represented among the explored biophobias (3 of 25), yet the relative search volume for plant- related phobias increased over time. One possible justification for this trend is that increasing fear of plants may be associated with other phobias. For instance, fear of flowers (Anthophobia) is usually associated with the fact that they attract bees and other arthropods that feed on their pollen and nectar (Saimbi et al., 2017). Likewise, an irrational fear of forests (Hylophobia) may be linked to the sense of claustrophobia and nyc- tophobia provoked by walking into a densely wooded area (Herzog & Kropscott, 2004; Herzog & Kutzli, 2002). Our analysis of factors that correlate with interest in biophobias at the country level also yielded relevant insights into the drivers of biophobia in modern societies. In our analysis, we observed that countries with a higher number of venomous species and larger and more stable urban populations tended to show interest in more biophobias. The positive relationship we found with the level of urbanisation provides indirect support to the ‘urbanisation- disgust hypothesis’ (Fukano & Soga, 2021). This hypothesis was recently proposed in an attempt to explain the high prevalence of disgust towards insects, spiders and other arthropods in modern societ- ies. Based on a large- scale online questionnaire survey, Fukano and Soga (2021) demonstrated that urbanisation increases the chance of seeing arthropods indoors, and this induces stronger disgust re- sponses than outdoor arthropods. According to this study, urban- isation is also associated with lesser knowledge about arthropods, ultimately broadening the range of species towards which people feel disgusted. This lack of knowledge about biological groups that may pose danger to humans may be particularly conducive to the development of biophobias in environments where a higher number of venomous species occur, as individuals may develop unfounded fears due to an inability to distinguish potentially dangerous from innocuous organisms. Beyond the lack of information, the outright spread of misinformation may also play an important role in the de- velopment of biophobias (Mammola et al., 2022a). The underpin- nings of the ‘urbanisation- disgust hypothesis’ therefore align with both the ‘direct conditioning’ and ‘informational’ pathways proposed by Rachman (1977) for the acquisition of specific phobias. Both path- ways have also been associated with the emergence of fear towards dogs (e.g. Doogan & Thomas, 1992), providing a reasonable expla- nation for the relatively high prevalence of searches for biophobias pertaining to common household pet animals which do not neces- sarily fit with the ‘urbanisation- disgust hypothesis’. Furthermore, biophobias can also be transmitted socially as a learned or condi- tioned behaviour (Lemelin & Yen, 2015), and may be reinforced in the absence of direct knowledge and experiences with nature in urban environments. This process is referred to as ‘modelling’ by Rachman (1977) and has also been proposed as a common mech- anism driving the emergence of phobias towards household pets (King et al., 1997). Likewise, modelling may also be a relevant path- way in the emergence of fear towards venomous taxa, as we found no relationship between interest in biophobias and the rate of direct encounters with venomous animals. We also found no evidence of F I G U R E 6  Relationship between urban population growth and the percentage of urban population. Colour gradient marks the number of searched phobias in a given country. 25758314, 0, D ow nloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10497 by University of Turku, W iley Online Library on [07/08/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on W iley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License     |  11People and NatureCORREIA and MAMMOLA a relationship between interest in biophobias and the prevalence of anxiety disorders in the population, indicating that biophobias may be driven by different factors from those linked to other mental dis- orders. Overall, further research is needed to disentangle the rela- tive importance of the three pathways in the origin of biophobias, as it is likely that all three pathways are simultaneously present and potentially interact in driving the emergence of different biophobias at the population level (King et al., 2000; Rachman, 1977). While our analyses provide interesting insights about the prev- alence of biophobias in contemporary societies that are largely concordant with recently proposed hypotheses about their pos- sible origins, the search engine data used here is not without its caveats and interpretation of results should be weighted accord- ingly. Beyond the challenges associated with assessing temporal trends from search engine data outlined above, there are also is- sues related to the content validity of internet searches (Correia et al., 2019; Mellon, 2013). Our use of topic searches instead of keyword searches accounts for some of the issues associated with multiple meanings and synonyms that are present in vernacular language (Correia et al., 2017). For example, Google Trends rec- ognises topics for both ‘Arachnophobia’ the movie and the bio- phobia, which can help differentiate the use of the same word in different contexts. However, the way the algorithm separates the two contexts remains a ‘black- box’ and thus we cannot exclude the existence of some noise in the data. Finally, there are well- known differences in Internet access across the world (Graham et al., 2015; Graham & Dittus, 2022) which correlate with urbani- sation patterns and may confound some of the patterns observed. Despite these caveats, it is undeniable that interest in biopho- bias is global and that this topic is deserving of more research. Our analyses support the idea that living in urban environments may lead to a disconnection from nature due to a reduced chance of di- rectly encountering wildlife and that this, in the long run, may in- crease the prevalence of a wide range of biophobias. This reinforces the message of a growing body of literature stressing the impor- tance of developing and maintaining urban green space for people and biodiversity (e.g. Amano et al., 2018; Hand et al., 2017; Lee & Maheswaran, 2011; Sadler et al., 2010; Soga et al., 2020; Sugiyama et al., 2021). Providing opportunities for urban populations to inter- act and develop a healthy relationship with nature may help shield them from misguided fears and anxieties towards other life forms, with obvious benefits for mental health and general well- being. This, in turn, may translate into benefits for biodiversity that goes beyond those emerging from providing nature with spaces to thrive in cities. The growing absence of societal knowledge about species driven by the extinction of experiences with nature has negative implications for biodiversity conservation (Jarić et al., 2022), but these are likely to be emphasised if ignorance gives way to fear, anxiety and other negative emotions. Less popular groups such as arthropods, plants and fungi receive lesser conservation support and resources (Adamo et al., 2022; Gonçalves et al., 2021; Mammola et al., 2022b) and may be particularly impacted if negative emotions towards them become more widespread. In the absence of more direct experiences, digital, visual and other media may play a key role in reconnecting urban publics with nature (Silk et al., 2021), potentially contributing to en- hance support for conservation and reduce biophobia prevalence. While the specific links between biodiversity conservation and bio- phobias remain poorly explored, they provide a fertile area for fur- ther scientific inquiry. AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS Ricardo A. Correia collected data, carried out analyses and prepared figures, with contributions by Stefano Mammola. Ricardo A. Correia and Stefano Mammola cowrote the manuscript. ACKNO WLE DG E MENTS RAC acknowledges funding from the Academy of Finland (Grant agreement #348352) and the KONE Foundation (Grant agreement #202101976). CONFLIC T OF INTERE S T S TATEMENT RAC is an associate editor of People and Nature but took no part in the peer review and decision- making processes for this paper. DATA AVAIL ABILIT Y S TATEMENT Data on relative search volume for each phobia are available from Google Trends (https://trends.google.com). Data and code used to model country- level interest in biophobias are available on GitHub (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7923575). ORCID Ricardo A. Correia https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7359-9091 Stefano Mammola https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4471-9055 R E FE R E N C E S Abba- Aji, A., Li, D., Hrabok, M., Shalaby, R., Gusnowski, A., Vuong, W., Surood, S., Nkire, N., Li, X.- M., Greenshaw, A. J., & Agyapong, V. I. O. (2020). 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Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 1, 3– 14. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2009.00001.x SUPPORTING INFORMATION Additional supporting information can be found online in the Supporting Information section at the end of this article. Figure S1: Summary plot of the country- level relationship between the number of biophobias with recorded search volume and four explanatory variables considered for modelling: (i) share of urban population, (ii) urban population growth, (iii) incidence of venomous animal contacts per 100.000 inhabitants, (iv) share of population with incidence of mental disorders, and (v) number of extant venomous species. Table S1: List of phobias used in this study, detailed description of each phobia and associated Google Knowledge Graph topic identifier. Table S2: Summary statistics of Mann– Kendall tau and Thiel Sen slope estimator used to assess temporal trends for each biophobia. Table S3: Summary table of the zero- hurdle count model relating the number of biophobias with recorded search interest and five explanatory variables. How to cite this article: Correia, R. A., & Mammola, S. (2023). The searchscape of fear: A global analysis of internet search trends for biophobias. People and Nature, 00, 1–15. https:// doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10497 25758314, 0, D ow nloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10497 by University of Turku, W iley Online Library on [07/08/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on W iley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License