Potential trade-off between vocal ornamentation and spatial ability in a songbird

Abstract

Bird song is hypothesized to be a reliable indicator of cognition because it depends on brain structure and function. Song features have been found to correlate positively with measures of cognition, but the relationship between song and cognition is complicated because not all cognitive abilities are themselves positively correlated. If cognition is not a unitary trait, developmental constraints on brain growth could generate trade-offs between some aspects of cognition and song. To further clarify the relationship between song and cognition in song sparrows (Melospiza melodia), we examined repertoire size and performance on a spatial task. We found an inverse relationship between repertoire size and speed of spatial learning and suggest that a developmental trade-off between the hippocampus and song control nuclei could be responsible for this relationship. By attending to male song, females may learn about a suite of cognitive abilities; this study suggests that females may glean information about a male's cognitive weaknesses as well as his strengths.

Individual guppies differ in quantity discrimination performance across antipredator and foraging contexts

“…This is usually explained by the existence of a single cognitive function that is involved in a large number of tasks and determines a 'general intelligence' (Duncan et al 2000;Sternberg 2000;Deary et al 2010). Our results substantially differ from those on humans, but they align with the studies on other species that often failed to find clear evidence general intelligence (Boogert et al 2011;Thornton and Lukas 2012;Sewall et al 2013; but see Reader et al 2011 andShaw et al 2015).…”

Developmental stress: evidence for positive phenotypic and fitness effects in birds

“…The effects of developmental stress on learning are clearly mixed with both positive and negative effects. Developmental stress may create resource trade-offs that cause individuals to invest in some neural structures at the expense of others during development (e.g., Sewall et al 2013). In this scenario, developmental stress may decrease some types of learning (e.g., song learning), but increase other types (e.g., motoric learning, but see Bonaparte et al 2011;Kitaysky et al 2003).…”

The relationship between male sexual signals, cognitive performance, and mating success in stickleback fish

“…For instance, song complexity and repertoire size do not always positively correlate with cognitive performance on different cognitive tasks (Anderson et al., 2016; Boogert, Anderson, et al., 2011; Sewall et al., 2013; Templeton, Laland, & Boogert, 2014; perhaps because of developmental trade‐offs (Sewall, Soha, Peters, & Nowicki, 2013). Similarly, female spotted bowerbirds do not appear to select males with better general cognitive abilities or performance on single tasks like barrier removal or shape discrimination (Isden, Panayi, Dingle, & Madden, 2013).…”