Problem-solving ability and response to novelty in mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli) from different elevations
Problem-solving ability and response to novelty in mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli) from different elevations
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DOI：
10.1007/s00265-015-1874-4
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发表时间：
2015-04-01
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Pravosudov, Vladimir V.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kozlovsky, Dovid Y.;Branch, Carrie L.;Pravosudov, Vladimir V.
生活在具有挑战性和恶劣环境中的动物有望从包括认知能力在内的某些表型特征中受益。特别是，创新和习惯化被认为是动物在具有挑战性的环境中受益的特征，并通过增加觅食成功来增加个体的生存概率。在这里，我们测试了来自两个海拔高度、冬季气候严酷程度不同的山地山雀是否在创新和适应方面的两个特征上存在差异--解决问题的能力和对新奇事物的反应。山地海拔越高，冬季的时间就越长，冬季的特点是气温较低，降雪较多，由于觅食需求可能会增加，这使得冬季生存更具挑战性。居住在高海拔地区的山地山雀比低海拔地区的山雀解决新问题的速度要快得多。来自两个海拔高度的鸟类对接近新对象的反应潜伏期增加；然而，没有与海拔相关的差异。雄性和雌性山雀在这两个任务上的反应相似，这表明在解决问题的能力或新的恐惧症方面没有性别差异。问题的解决结果与在更大地理尺度上沿冬季气候严酷的纵向梯度密切相关的黑帽山雀的结果是一致的，但对新奇数据的反应不一致。总体而言，我们的数据支持这样一种假设，即增强的问题解决能力可能与生活在更恶劣的环境中有关，无论是通过自然选择还是通过对不同环境的塑料反应，并表明解决问题能力的差异不必与新恐惧症的差异相关。
Animals inhabiting challenging and harsh environments are expected to benefit from certain phenotypic traits including cognitive abilities. In particular, innovation and habituation are traits thought to benefit animals in challenging environments and increase individual's probability of survival via increased foraging success. Here, we tested whether mountain chickadees from two elevations varying in winter climate severity differed in two traits involving innovation and habituation-problem-solving ability and response to novelty. Higher montane elevations are associated with a significantly longer winter period characterized by lower temperatures and more snow, making winter survival more challenging due to a probable increase in foraging demands. Mountain chickadees inhabiting the harsher high elevation were significantly faster at solving a novel problem than their low elevation counterparts. Birds from both elevations responded with increased latency to approach the novel object; however, there were no elevation-related differences. Male and female chickadees responded similarly on both tasks, suggesting no sex-related differences in problem solving ability or neophobia. The problem solving results are consistent with the results for closely related black-capped chickadees along a longitudinal gradient of winter climatic harshness on a larger geographic scale, but the response to novelty data is not. Overall, our data support the hypothesis that enhanced problem solving ability might be associated with living in harsher environments either via natural selection or by plastic response to different environments and suggest that differences in problem solving ability do not have to be associated with differences in neophobia.