Problem-solving performance is correlated with reproductive success in a wild bird population

Cauchard, Laure; Boogert, Neeltje J.; Lefebvre, Louis; Dubois, Frédérique; Doligez, Blandine

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.10.005

Cited by 163 publications

(150 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Some sources of variation can be accounted for by incorporating measures of motivation (e.g. persistence [21,25,40,58,87]), but others are likely to be more difficult to quantify (e.g. whether the required solving technique is a common or rare motor action in the individual's foraging repertoire).…”

Section: (B) Is Neophilia a Cause Of Innovation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The comparative approach was later extended to an analysis of behavioural innovations in primates, drawing upon both wild and captive observations [14][15][16]. The second methodology employs an individual or, more rarely, a species-level proxy of innovativeness, namely performance on novel problems, from manipulating objects to negotiating mazes to gain access to food or other desirable objects, such as offspring and nest decorations [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. This measure of innovativeness is often referred to as innovative problem-solving.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Innovativeness as an emergent property: a new alignment of comparative and experimental research on animal innovation

Griffin¹

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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One contribution of 15 to a theme issue 'Innovation in animals and humans: understanding the origins and development of novel and creative behaviour'. Innovation and creativity are key defining features of human societies. As we face the global challenges of the twenty-first century, they are also facets upon which we must become increasingly reliant. But what makes Homo sapiens so innovative and where does our high innovation propensity come from? Comparative research on innovativeness in non-human animals allows us to peer back through evolutionary time and investigate the ecological factors that drove the evolution of innovativeness, whereas experimental research identifies and manipulates underpinning creative processes. In commenting on the present theme issue, I highlight the controversies that have typified this research field and show how a paradigmatic shift in our thinking about innovativeness will contribute to resolving these tensions. In the past decade, innovativeness has been considered by many as a trait, a direct product of cognition, and a direct target of selection. The evidence I review here suggests that innovativeness will be hereon viewed as one component, or even an emergent property of a larger array of traits, which have evolved to deal with environmental variation. I illustrate how research should capitalize on taxonomic diversity to unravel the full range of psychological processes that underpin innovativeness in non-human animals.

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Section: (B) Is Neophilia a Cause Of Innovation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovativeness as an emergent property: a new alignment of comparative and experimental research on animal innovation

Griffin¹

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Some recent studies have implicated a role for male cognitive abilities in the capacity to attract mates, successfully father offspring and efficiently perform parental care, particularly in birds [8][9][10][11][12]. In Drosophila melanogaster, it was shown that male cognitive traits were eroded under relaxed sexual selection, demonstrating a potentially significant role of cognition in the mating system of this species [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive ability is heritable and predicts the success of an alternative mating tactic

2015

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The ability to attract mates, acquire resources for reproduction, and successfully outcompete rivals for fertilizations may make demands on cognitive traits-the mechanisms by which an animal acquires, processes, stores and acts upon information from its environment. Consequently, cognitive traits potentially undergo sexual selection in some mating systems. We investigated the role of cognitive traits on the reproductive performance of male rose bitterling (Rhodeus ocellatus), a freshwater fish with a complex mating system and alternative mating tactics. We quantified the learning accuracy of males and females in a spatial learning task and scored them for learning accuracy. Males were subsequently allowed to play the roles of a guarder and a sneaker in competitive mating trials, with reproductive success measured using paternity analysis. We detected a significant interaction between male mating role and learning accuracy on reproductive success, with the best-performing males in maze trials showing greater reproductive success in a sneaker role than as a guarder. Using a cross-classified breeding design, learning accuracy was demonstrated to be heritable, with significant additive maternal and paternal effects. Our results imply that male cognitive traits may undergo intra-sexual selection.

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“…Some studies suggest that innovations correlate positively to traits closely aligned with fitness ( [18,31,32] but see [33]). Less clear is whether the benefits accrued in the long term are any better than strategies adopted by non-innovators, not least because there is no evidence of direct links with robust measures of fitness, such as survival and the total number of offspring recruited by an individual into the breeding population over its lifetime [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental and genetic determinants of innovativeness in a natural population of birds

Quinn

Cole

Reed

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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One contribution of 15 to a theme issue 'Innovation in animals and humans: understanding the origins and development of novel and creative behaviour'. Much of the evidence for the idea that individuals differ in their propensity to innovate and solve new problems has come from studies on captive primates. Increasingly, behavioural ecologists are studying innovativeness in wild populations, and uncovering links with functional behaviour and fitnessrelated traits. The relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in driving this variation, however, remains unknown. Here, we present the results of the first large-scale study to examine a range of causal factors underlying innovative problem-solving performance (PSP) among 831 great tits (Parus major) temporarily taken into captivity. Analyses show that PSP in this population: (i) was linked to a variety of individual factors, including age, personality and natal origin (immigrant or local-born); (ii) was influenced by natal environment, because individuals had a lower PSP when born in poor-quality habitat, or where local population density was high, leading to cohort effects. Links with many of the individual and environmental factors were present only in some years. In addition, PSP (iii) had little or no measurable heritability, as estimated by a Bayesian animal model; and (iv) was not influenced by maternal effects. Despite previous reports of links between PSP and a range of functional traits in this population, the analyses here suggest that innovativeness had weak if any evolutionary potential. Instead most individual variation was caused by phenotypic plasticity driven by links with other behavioural traits and by environmentally mediated developmental stress. Heritability estimates are population, time and context specific, however, and more studies are needed to determine the generality of these effects. Our results shed light on the causes of innovativeness within populations, and add to the debate on the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in driving phenotypic variation within populations.

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Problem-solving performance is correlated with reproductive success in a wild bird population

Cited by 163 publications

References 61 publications

Innovativeness as an emergent property: a new alignment of comparative and experimental research on animal innovation

Innovativeness as an emergent property: a new alignment of comparative and experimental research on animal innovation

Cognitive ability is heritable and predicts the success of an alternative mating tactic

Environmental and genetic determinants of innovativeness in a natural population of birds

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