Cognition, personality, and stress in budgerigars, Melopsittacus undulatus

Abstract

To study the fitness effects of individual variation in cognitive traits, it is paramount to understand whether traits such as personality and physiological stress influence cognitive performance. We first tested whether budgerigars showed both consistent personalities and cognitive performance across time and tasks. We tested object and food neophobia, and exploratory behavior. We measured cognitive performance in habituation, ability to solve foraging problems, spatial memory, and seed discrimination tasks. Budgerigars showed consistency in their neophobic tendencies and these tendencies were associated with their exploratory behavior. Birds were also consistent in how they performed in most of the cognitive tasks (temporal consistency), but were not consistent in their performance across tasks (context consistency). Neither corticosterone levels (baseline and stress-induced) showed a significant relationship with either cognitive or personality measures. Neophobic and exploratory tendencies determined the willingness of birds to engage only in the seed discrimination task. Such tendencies also had a significant effect on problem-solving ability. Our results suggest that consistent individual differences in cognitive performance along with consistent differences in personality could determine response to environmental change and therefore have important fitness consequences.

Habitat and social context affect memory phenotype, exploration and covariance among these traits

“…For example, exploratory behaviour is one aspect often used in determining the link between behaviour and cognitive ability. Fast explorers are predicted to acquire information about their environment more rapidly [ 9 ], and there is an indication that fast-exploring individuals also show a greater tendency to engage with testing apparatus [ 10 , 11 ]. However, fast-exploring individuals may also be less accurate in the information they acquire [ 7 ] and demonstrate less flexibility in altering behaviour in response to change once information is acquired [ 9 ].…”

Relationship between personality and cognitive traits in domestic rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus)

“…One possible explanation is that our results are explained by the effects of domestication on animal behavior (Brust & Guenther, 2015, Albiach-Serrano, 2012). Although implications of domestication in cognitive traits have not been extensively investigated, several studies have reported a weak link between personality and cognitive traits in domesticated species (Boissy, 2014; Brust & Guenther, 2015; Medina-García et al, 2017; Barnard et al, 2018; Dougherty & Guillette, 2018). Domesticated species have become adapted to artificial environments and low-risk conditions (Künzl et al, 2003; Kaisser et al, 2015).…”

Maternal diet affects juvenile Carpetan rock lizard performance and personality

“…On the other hand, this pattern is not general (Koolhaas et al, 1999); moreover, there is no direct link between stress-induced corticosterone level and personality in some cases (Garamszegi, Rosivall, et al, 2012;Medina-García et al, 2017). Hence, the exact role of corticosterone in the emergence of behavioral consistency is still unclear.…”

“…In addition, bold behavioral types (i.e., risk‐prone, active, superficial explorer) seem to be associated with low, while shy behavioral types (i.e., risk‐averse, less active, thorough explorer) with high basal levels of corticosterone (see Carere et al, ; Cockrem, ; Koolhaas et al, ). On the other hand, this pattern is not general (Koolhaas et al, ); moreover, there is no direct link between stress‐induced corticosterone level and personality in some cases (Garamszegi, Rosivall, et al, ; Medina‐García et al, ). Hence, the exact role of corticosterone in the emergence of behavioral consistency is still unclear.…”

“…In contrast to maternal effects, the relationship between glucocorticoid hormones and personality was studied frequently (Carere, Caramaschi, & Fawcett, 2010;Ghio et al, 2016;Koolhaas et al, 1999;Medina-García, Jawor, & Wright, 2017;Mell et al, 2016;Muraco, Aspbury, & Gabor, 2014;Øverli et al, 2007). Glucocorticoids are metabolic hormones with numerous pleiotropic effects (MacDougall-Shackleton, Bonier, Romero, & Moore, 2019), they play a primary role in energy mobilization and facilitate behavioral and physiological shifts to minimize the effect of stress (Cote, Clobert, Meylan, & Fitze, 2006;Cote, Clobert, Montes Poloni, Haussy, & Meylan, 2010;Romero & Wingfield, 2015).…”