Collaborative Research: IMAGINE FG: Linking the genetic basis of spatial cognition to natural selection in a food-caching bird

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Understanding the evolution of cognition and whether natural selection can shape cognitive abilities, is a major goal of the study of animal behavior and evolutionary biology. Cognition allows animals to adjust to changing conditions, and it is well known to be affected by both environmental and developmental conditions. At the same time, there is considerable variation in cognitive abilities both between and within species and causes of such variation remain unclear. It is generally assumed that variation in cognitive abilities can be shaped directly by natural selection and recently, we provided evidence that individual variation in spatial cognitive abilities involved in the recovery of food caches in food-caching mountain chickadees is under direct selection. Mountain chickadees are small birds that rely on their memory to hide and find thousands of food items and depend on their food caches for overwinter survival. The central goal of the research is to understand how natural selection shapes learning and memory ability and to uncover the genetic basis of variation in learning and memory ability. To share the importance of our research with a broad audience, we will use a multifaceted broader impacts strategy focused on student training, community engagement, and education with an overall focus on broadening participation of underrepresented groups through a commitment to equity, inclusion, and diversity. We will engage the general public through public lectures at two field stations and both general public and students from local schools at Natural History Museums in Nevada and in Colorado. The project will provide training to two postdoctoral fellows as well as to numerous graduate and undergraduate students, who will be recruited through established programs that support students traditionally underrepresented in STEM.This research has four aims. The first is to understand the genetic basis of specialized spatial memory in food-caching mountain chickadees. The second is to measure heritability of specialized spatial memory. The third is to understand how natural selection shapes genetic variation in genomic regions that underlie specialized spatial memory. The fourth is to determine if the genetic basis of spatial memory is geographically consistent by comparing populations from different mountain ranges. To meet these aims, the research will sample mountain chickadees from populations in two different mountain ranges. Among other data types, the work will combine whole genome sequence data, sequence capture data, and spatial cognition data to develop a deep understanding of the mechanisms by which natural selection shapes variation in spatial cognition. This work is jointly funded by the Behavioral Systems Cluster in the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems and the Evolutionary Processes Cluster in the Division of Environmental Biology.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.