Enhanced problem-solving ability as an adaptation to urban environments in house mice

Vrbanec, Lara; Matijević, Vanja; Guenther, Anja

doi:10.1098/rspb.2020.2504

Cited by 21 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…However, we included one test where the birds had to remove an obstacle to enter their nest instead of accessing food, because it still required the bird to manipulate an obstacle to access a reward, thus presumably required similar cognitive and motoric skills to the food access tests (Preiszner et al, 2017). We also decided to exclude papers that, rather than comparing urban and non-urban populations of the same species, defined "urbanization" as the distance from the edge of a residential area (Grunst et al, 2020) or compared subspecies with different history in urban habitats (Vrbanec et al, 2021).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urbanization’s Effects on Problem Solving Abilities: A Meta-Analysis

Vincze

Kovács

2022

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Cognitive abilities are often assumed to be advantageous in urban habitats, but relatively few studies tested this assumption. In a meta-analysis, we tested whether urban animals have better problem-solving abilities compared to their less urbanized conspecifics. After screening 210 papers we collected by keyword search and forward search, we found 12 studies that compared the ability to solve food-extraction or obstacle-removal problems between urban and non-urban populations of the same animal species. These studies were published between 2009 and 2021, and were performed mostly on birds, whereas a quarter of them used mammals as study species. We found a statistically non-significant trend that urban animals are more successful and faster problem-solvers compared to their less urbanized conspecifics. However, both solving success and solving latency effect sizes were highly heterogeneous, therefore hard to generalize. Though the sample was too low to test the factors explaining this high heterogeneity, we suggest that it may be explained by variation in task types, study species, definitions of urbanization, whether the study was performed on captive or free-living animals, geographical location, or publication bias in both directions. Altogether, more studies are needed to either confirm or disprove this trend.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urbanization’s Effects on Problem Solving Abilities: A Meta-Analysis

Vincze

Kovács

2022

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…Morphological adaptations such as longer tails as well as changes in behavior and life history have been described previously (Berry, 1981;Pockock et al, 2005). Behaviors associated with flexibility (i.e., innovation propensity and inhibitory control) are heightened in house mouse subspecies that have lived together with humans for longer (Vrbanec et al, 2021). In addition, Frynta et al (2018) found commensal populations to show increased exploration behavior of elevated places over non-commensal house mouse populations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 58%

“…While all M. musculus were caught in or close to human buildings, M. spicilegus and A. uralensis were never caught in human buildings but on agricultural fields. Detailed information including GPS locations of trapping sites can be found in Harr et al (2016) and Vrbanec et al (2021).…”

Section: Animals and Housing Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, several behaviors have already been shown to differ between urban and rural populations of the same animal species. For example, enhanced problem-solving abilities, reflecting high rates of flexibility and innovation, are being recognized as significant contributors for animals to thrive in human-altered environments (Reader, 2003;Sih, 2013;Vrbanec et al, 2021). In addition, behaviors that allow animals to cope with novel stimuli, such as high levels of neophilia and boldness or low levels of disturbance tendencies, are often altered in urban populations (Tryjanowski et al, 2016;Sol et al, 2018;von Merten et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does Living in Human-Altered Environments Affect Life-History and Personality of Wild Mice?

Küçüktaş

Guenther²

2022

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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In urban habitats, animals are faced with different and often challenging environmental conditions compared to their native habitats. Behavior is the fastest response to environmental change and therefore a very important component to adjust to human-altered environments. Behaviors such as novelty responses and innovativeness which allow animals to cope with novel stimuli are often altered in urban populations. The mechanisms producing such adaptations are currently not well understood. In this study, we investigate whether urban living has an impact on the microevolution of mouse behavioral and life-history traits including boldness, stress-coping, growth, longevity, and emphasis on reproduction. We hypothesized that animals living together with humans for longer show increased novelty-seeking and boldness characteristics at the species and subspecies level. We, therefore, compared behavior and life history characteristics among Mus musculus, a commensal rodent, Mus spicilegus as a synanthropic but not commensal, and Apodemus uralensis as a strictly rural species. In addition, we compared three subspecies of M. musculus (in total six populations) that differ in the time living together with humans. Behavioral and life history differences are stronger between populations even of the same subspecies rather than showing a structural trend with the time animals have spent with humans. In addition, species differ in behavior and life history, albeit not in a pattern that suggests an evolutionary adaptation to living in human-altered habitats. We, therefore, suggest that behavioral adaptations of wild mice are geared toward environmental differences such as geographic origin or habitat specifics but not necessarily directly evolve by living together with humans.

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“…For example, bird species that show a greater propensity for innovation are more likely to become established invaders worldwide ; see also Roudez et al 2008;Damas-Moreira et al 2019;Ortiz-Alvarado and Rivera-Marchand 2020). Similar mechanisms have also been connected to successful invasion of urban areas (Audet et al 2015;Cook et al 2017;Kozlovsky et al 2017;Lee and Thornton 2021;Vrbanec et al 2021). On a larger evolutionary timescale, behavioral flexibility has been suggested to facilitate adaptive radiation on islands by enabling species to persist in new niches that are eventually entrenched via selection .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Interactions between neuroanatomy, cognition, and ecology in Anolis lizards

Storks¹

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The interactions between an organism and its environment are mediated by cognition, the substrates of which are in the brain. Cognition is ubiquitous across vertebrates, yet we still know very little about the factors shaping its evolution, particularly outside of birds and mammals. In natural environments, cognition likely impacts organism fitness. Behavioral flexibility, which enables an animal to modulate its behavior to match its environment, may facilitate success in novel habitats, such as in dispersal to islands, biotic invasions, and urban adaptation. Cognitive specializations may also be associated with specific ecological traits, such as habitat complexity. Furthermore, our understanding of the neural substrates of cognition in the brain is primarily limited to studies of relative brain size. The first chapter provides a more in depth introduction to these topics. In this dissertation, I explore the interactions between cognition, neuroanatomy, and ecology in Anolis lizards. Anolis lizards exhibit a diversity of habitat specializations, which is the result of adaptive radiation in the West Indies. As mentioned above, cognitive mechanisms in anoles may play a role in adjusting to novel environments and exploiting new niches. In the second chapter, I modified a detour task to evaluate whether wild, free-living Anolis sagrei can solve a novel detour problem under natural conditions. In the second chapter, I compare the neuron and nonneuron number and density of Anolis cristatellus and Anolis evermanni to see whether differences in neuroanatomy reflect their differential performance on an extractive foraging task. I also explore how these data relate to published observations from other vertebrates. Finally, in the fourth chapter I expand upon two previous studies by evaluating whether neuron number follows the predictions of concerted or mosaic evolution in five species of Puerto Rican Anolis and whether habitat complexity explains differences in neuron density between species. I conclude in the final chapter by summarizing my results and outlining future directions. Taken together, the results presented in this dissertation demonstrate the potential for studying cognition and neuroanatomy in an evolutionary context. The methods applied in my second chapter can be used in the future to explore the connection between cognition and fitness in lizards, which are a tractable model for such studies under natural conditions. My third and fourth chapters took a novel approach by studying neuroanatomical differences between species in neuron number and density, and generated novel insights into brain evolution in Anolis. By studying cognition and the brain in lizards and other ectotherms, we can begin to finally understand factors shaping the evolution of cognition and neuroanatomy across vertebrates.

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Enhanced problem-solving ability as an adaptation to urban environments in house mice

Cited by 21 publications

References 43 publications

Urbanization’s Effects on Problem Solving Abilities: A Meta-Analysis

Urbanization’s Effects on Problem Solving Abilities: A Meta-Analysis

Does Living in Human-Altered Environments Affect Life-History and Personality of Wild Mice?

Interactions between neuroanatomy, cognition, and ecology in Anolis lizards

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