Elevation-related differences in memory and the hippocampus in mountain chickadees, Poecile gambeli

Freas, Cody A.; LaDage, Lara D.; Roth, Timothy C.; Pravosudov, Vladimir V.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.04.018

Cited by 83 publications

(170 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…2. In both species, laboratory conditions did not eliminate population differences in food caching rates, spatial memory performance, and some hippocampal properties (most notably the total number of neurons; Freas et al, 2012;Freas, Bingman, et al, 2013;Pravosudov & Clayton, 2002).…”

Section: Potential Causes Of Climate-related Variation In Spatial Memmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Higher elevations are associated with significantly lower winter temperatures (likely requiring more food intake to meet higher energetic demands), longer winter period associated with limited natural (e.g., not cached) food supply (likely increasing reliance on food caches for overwinter survival), and significantly more snow cover (both on the ground and on trees) that likely limits access to some potential foraging substrates. Similarly to black-capped chickadees from different winter conditions, mountain chickadees from higher elevations in the Sierra Nevada had a stronger propensity to cache food, better spatial memory ability, larger hippocampus volume, higher total number and larger soma size of hippocampal neurons, and higher hippocampal neurogenesis rates (Figure 3; Freas et al, 2012;Freas, Bingman, et al, 2013;Freas, Roth, LaDage, & Pravosudov, 2013).…”

Section: Population Variation In Spatial Memory and Hippocampus Morphmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In black-capped chickadees, birds from the two extreme populations (Alaska and Kansas) were hand-reared from the nestling age when the eyes were still closed (10 days of age) and maintained in controlled laboratory conditions during their entire life. Yet hand-reared chickadees from Alaska showed higher food caching rates, displayed better spatial memory performance, were better at novel problem solving, and had significantly larger total number and soma size of hippocampal neurons, higher total number of glial cells, and higher hippocampal neurogenesis rates (Freas, Roth, et al, 2013;Roth, LaDage, Freas, & Pravosudov, 2012). At the same time, the total number of hippocampal neurons and hippocampal neurogenesis rates were statistically similar between wild-caught and "common garden" chickadees from their respective populations.…”

Section: Potential Causes Of Climate-related Variation In Spatial Memmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mountain chickadees experience different winter conditions on a much smaller spatial scale along an elevation gradient of winter climate severity in the mountains, with birds at higher elevations experiencing longer and colder winters (Freas, LaDage, Roth, & Pravosudov, 2012). Higher elevations are associated with significantly lower winter temperatures (likely requiring more food intake to meet higher energetic demands), longer winter period associated with limited natural (e.g., not cached) food supply (likely increasing reliance on food caches for overwinter survival), and significantly more snow cover (both on the ground and on trees) that likely limits access to some potential foraging substrates.…”

Section: Population Variation In Spatial Memory and Hippocampus Morphmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Environmental Influences on Spatial Memory and the Hippocampus in Food-Caching Chickadees

Pravosudov¹,

Roth²,

LaDage³

et al. 2015

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Cognitive abilities have been widely considered as a buffer against environmental harshness and instability, with better cognitive abilities being especially crucial for fitness in harsh and unpredictable environments. Although the brain is considered to be highly plastic and responsive to changes in the environment, the extent of such environment-induced plasticity and the relative contributions of natural selection to the frequently large variation in cognitive abilities and brain morphology both within and between species remain poorly understood. Food-caching chickadees present a good model to tackle these questions because they: (a) occur over a large gradient of environmental harshness largely determined by winter climate severity, (b) depend on food caches to survive winter and their ability to retrieve food caches is, at least in part, reliant on hippocampus-dependent spatial memory, and (c) regularly experience a distinct seasonal cycle of food caching and cache retrieval. Here we review a body of work, both comparative and experimental, on two species of food-caching chickadees and discuss how these data relate to our understanding of how environment-induced plasticity and natural selection generate environment-related variation in spatial memory and the hippocampus, both across populations as well as across seasons within the same population. We argue that available evidence suggests a relatively limited role of environmentinduced structural hippocampal plasticity underlying population variation. At the same time, evidence is consistent with the history of natural selection due to differences in winter climate severity and associated with heritable individual variation in spatial memory and the hippocampus. There appears to be no clear direct association between seasonal variation in hippocampus morphology and seasonal variation in demands of food caching. Finally, we suggest that experimental studies of hippocampal plasticity with captive birds should be viewed with some caution because captivity is associated with large reductions in many hippocampal traits, including volume and in some cases neurogenesis rates, but not neuron number. Comparative studies using captive birds, on the other hand, appear to provide more reliable results, as captivity does not appear to override population differences, especially in the number of hippocampal neurons. A key evolutionary question for understanding how environmental heterogeneity is associated with cognitive abilities concerns the relative contribution of environmentinduced effects (e.g., plasticity) and natural selection acting on heritable cognitive traits as a means of generating environment-related variation in cognition and neural traits (e.g., . At least in humans, there is sufficient evidence that both general cognition and specific cognitive traits are highly heritable and that individual variation in these traits is, at least in part, determined by genetics (e.g., Ando, Ono, & Wright, 2001;Haworth et al., 2010;McGee, 1979;Pedersen, Plomin, Nesselro...

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Section: Potential Causes Of Climate-related Variation In Spatial Memmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Population Variation In Spatial Memory and Hippocampus Morphmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Potential Causes Of Climate-related Variation In Spatial Memmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Population Variation In Spatial Memory and Hippocampus Morphmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Environmental Influences on Spatial Memory and the Hippocampus in Food-Caching Chickadees

Pravosudov¹,

Roth²,

LaDage³

et al. 2015

CCBR

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“…A decade and a half later, however, it is not clear that that promise is being realised. For example, food storing, once a model for examining questions of the evolution of cognition and possibly the wildest of all the examples discussed in Balda et al (1998), is now much less of a focus (e.g., Biegler, McGregor, Krebs, & Healy, 2001;Hampton & Shettleworth, 1996;Sherry & Vaccarino, 1989; but see Feeney, Roberts, & Sherry, 2009;Freas, LaDage, Roth, & Pravosudov, 2012). Food storing did, however, lead to perhaps the greatest recent flurry of excitement and effort in comparative cognition (Clayton & Dickinson, 1999): the examination of cognitive abilities in corvids.…”

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confidence: 99%

What hummingbirds can tell us about cognition in the wild

Healy¹,

Hurly²

2013

CCBR

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Here we review around 20 years of experimental data that we have collected during tests of cognitive abilities of free-living, wild rufous hummingbirds Selasphorus rufus at their breeding grounds in southwestern Alberta. Because these birds are readily trained to feed from artificial flowers they have proved a useful system for testing cognitive abilities of an animal outside the box wherein animal cognitive abilities are so often tested in the laboratory. And, although these data all come from a single species in a single location, the long-term aim of this work is to make a contribution to our understanding of the evolution of cognitive abilities, by examining the relationship between the ecological demands these birds face and their cognitive abilities. Testing predictions based on our knowledge of their ecology we have found that, while these birds aggressively defend a territory and display to females during the time we train and test them, they can learn and remember the locations of rewarded flowers, what those flowers look like, and when they are likely to contain food. Small-brained though they may be, these 3g hummingbirds appear to have cognitive capabilities that are not only well matched to their ecological demands, they are in at least some instances better (more capacious) than those of animals tested in the laboratory.

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A possible relation between new neuronal recruitment and migratory behavior in Acrocephalus warblers

Barkan

Yom‐Tov

Barnea

2014

Developmental Neurobiology

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Evidence suggests a possible correlation between learning abilities of adults and new neuronal recruitment into their brains. The hypothesis is that this brain plasticity enables animals to adapt to environmental changes. We examined whether there are differences in neuronal recruitment between resident and migrant birds. We predicted that migrants, which are more exposed to spatial changes than residents, will recruit more new neurons. To test this, we compared neuronal recruitment in two closely related bird species - the migrant reed warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus), and the resident Clamorous warbler (A. Stentoreus) - during spring, summer, and autumn. Wild birds were caught, treated with BrdU and sacrificed five weeks later. New neurons were recorded in the Hippocampus and Nidopallium caudolateral. The results support our hypothesis, as more new neurons were found in the migrant species, in both brain regions and all seasons. We suggest that this phenomenon enables enhanced navigational abilities, which are required for the migratory lifestyle. However, in contrast to our hypothesis, in spring we found less new neurons in adults of both species, as compared to other seasons. We suggest that in spring, when birds settle in breeding territories, they require less spatial skills, and this might enable to reduce the cost of neuronal recruitment, as reflected by less new neurons in their brains. We also found age differences, with overall higher neuronal recruitment in juveniles. Finally, we advocate the importance of studying wild populations, for a better understanding of the adaptive significance of neuronal replacement in the vertebrate brain.

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Elevation-related differences in memory and the hippocampus in mountain chickadees, Poecile gambeli

Cited by 83 publications

References 26 publications

Environmental Influences on Spatial Memory and the Hippocampus in Food-Caching Chickadees

Environmental Influences on Spatial Memory and the Hippocampus in Food-Caching Chickadees

What hummingbirds can tell us about cognition in the wild

A possible relation between new neuronal recruitment and migratory behavior in Acrocephalus warblers

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