Cognition, Ecology and Evolution in Wild Passerine Birds

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Learning and memory are essential for successful reproduction, resource acquisition and predator avoidance in a wide diversity of species. Although the links between cognition and the nervous system have been studied intensively in the last century, we still know very little on why contemporary species differ in cognitive abilities. The long-term objective of my research program is to understand how cognition is shaped by natural selection in the wild. Our short-term objectives include the study of the evolution of spatial memory, learning, and innovativeness in wild passerine birds. Spatial memory is thought to be critical for food-hoarding birds, because these species make thousands of caches and relocate them by remembering their exact locations several weeks later. Research on food-hoarding relies on the untested assumption that individuals with better spatial memory survive better through harsh winters; I propose to test this using a local population of wild black-capped chickadees. We will also use this newly-monitored population to examine the relative contribution of spatial memory and learning to survival in habitats characterised by different levels of anthropogenic modification. My team will also examine the evolution of spatial cognition in a population of gray jays that has been shown to decline recenty due to climate change and the resulting elevated fall temperature that degrades the jays' food caches. We will examine the jays' ability at using a novel, non-perishable food type to make their caches and will assess the impact of this foraging innovation on their reproductive success. We will also continue ongoing research on the evolution of learning ability in non-hoarding great tits of Oxford's Wytham Woods, United Kingdom, where >1000 individual birds are studied every year by a group of international researchers. I expect our research to contribute to a better understanding of how cognition evolves in natural populations of vertebrates, which is relevant to understanding the evolution of our own intelligence.