Objective: To examine the relation between mobile phone addiction and high school students’ depression, and its inner mechanism—the sequential mediating roles of the cyberbullying victimization and the cyberbullying perpetration in this relationship.Methods: 1297 high school students were recruited to complete the Smartphone Addiction Scale, European Cyberbullying Intervention Project Questionnaire and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale.Results: (1) Mobile phone addiction was positively correlated with and high school students’ depression; (2) cyberbullying victimization and the cyberbullying perpetration significantly mediated the relation between mobile phone addiction and high school students’ depression, which contained tow mediating paths—the independent mediating effects of cyberbullying victimization and the sequential mediating effect of cyberbullying victimization and the cyberbullying perpetration; (3) there are gender differences in the sequential mediation model, and boys who are victims of cyberbullying are more likely to develop into cyberbullying perpetrators than girls.Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that depression among high school students with mobile phone addiction can be eliminated through the development of cyberbullying victimization and the cyberbullying perpetration.

Continuous exposure to human activity has led to considerable behavioural changes in some wildlife populations. Animals are more likely to survive in a changing environment by adjusting their behaviour to repeatedly occurring but harmless stimulations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, starting in late 2019, face masks were recommended to the public to prevent the spread of pathogens. In this context, we compared the flight initiation distance (FID) of the Eurasian tree sparrow (Passer montanus), a commonly seen bird across China, in Yibin and Dazhou, Sichuan, in response to people with or without face masks. After continuous exposure to people wearing face masks for nearly six months, sparrows evidently became adapted to people wearing face masks, and correspondingly showed shorter FIDs in response to people wearing masks. To our knowledge, this is the first study showing that birds show reduced fear responses to people wearing face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results suggest a novel aspect of short-term adaptation of wildlife to human behaviour, and that the learning ability of sparrows allows them to adjust their behaviours to adapt to such subtle changes in the environment.

Background: Brood parasitic birds such as cuckoos (Cuculusspp.) can reduce their host’s reproductive success. Such selection pressure on the hosts has driven the evolution of defense behaviors such as egg rejection against cuckoo parasitism. Studies have shown that Cinereous Tits (Parus cinereus) in China have a good ability for recognizing foreign eggs. However, it is unclear whether egg spots play a role in egg recognition. The aims of our study were to investigate the egg recognition ability of two Cinereous Tit populations in China and to explore the role of spots in egg recognition.Methods: To test the effect of eggshell spots on egg recognition, pure white eggs of the White-rumped Munia (Lonchura striata) and eggs of White-rumped Munia painted with red brown spots were used to simulate experimental parasitism.Results: Egg experiments showed that Cinereous Tits rejected 51.5% of pure white eggs of the White-rumped Munia, but only 14.3% of spotted eggs of the White-rumped Munia. There was a significant difference in egg recognition and rejection rate between the two egg types.Conclusions: We conclude that eggshell spots on Cinereous Tit eggs had a signaling function and may be essential to tits for recognizing and rejecting parasitic eggs.