Problems faced by food-caching corvids and the evolution of cognitive solutions

Grodzinski, Uri; Clayton, Nicola S.

doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0210

Cited by 81 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 89 publications

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“…Neurobiological mechanisms underlying choice behaviors are a fascinating subject for investigation across multiple disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, and ethology (8)(9)(10). Both our daily life observations (e.g., fight or flight reactions in the presence of a threatening stimulus) and scientific studies (e.g., swimming or crawling in the medicinal leech facing identical sensory stimuli) (7) point to the existence of a brain circuitry that can dictate behavioral choices in the face of identical sensory input potentially to maximize survival and well-being.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of a brain center whose activity discriminates a choice behavior in zebrafish

Lau

Mathur

Gould

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

183

194

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The ability to make choices and carry out appropriate actions is critical for individual survival and well-being. Choice behaviors, from hard-wired to experience-dependent, have been observed across the animal kingdom. Although differential engagement of sensory neuronal pathways is a known mechanism, neurobiological substrates in the brain that underlie choice making downstream of sensory perception are not well understood. Here, we report a behavioral paradigm in zebrafish in which a half-light/ half-dark visual image evokes an innate choice behavior, light avoidance. Neuronal activity mapping using the immediate early gene c-fos reveals the engagement of distinct brain regions, including the medial zone of the dorsal telencephalic region (Dm) and the dorsal nucleus of the ventral telencephalic area (Vd), the teleost anatomical homologs of the mammalian amygdala and striatum, respectively. In animals that were subjected to the identical sensory stimulus but displayed little or no avoidance, strikingly, the Dm and Vd were not engaged, despite similar levels of activation in the brain nuclei involved in visual processing. Based on these findings and previous connectivity data, we propose a neural circuitry model in which the Dm serves as a brain center, the activity of which predicates this choice behavior in zebrafish.emotion | fear | anxiety | decision-making

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of a brain center whose activity discriminates a choice behavior in zebrafish

Lau

Mathur

Gould

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

183

194

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In corvids, the risk of conspecifics pilfering caches is particularly high because they remember the locations of caches that they have seen another individual make [2 -6]. This observational spatial memory may have acted as a catalyst in an evolutionary arms race, leading to the development of sophisticated cache-protection and pilfering strategies [6,7]. Corvid cache-protection strategies limit opportunities for conspecifics to witness caching events [8,9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Careful cachers and prying pilferers: Eurasian jays ( Garrulus glandarius ) limit auditory information available to competitors

Shaw

Clayton

2013

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Food-storing corvids use many cache-protection and pilfering strategies. We tested whether Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) reduce the transfer of auditory information to a competitor when caching and pilfering. We gave jays a noisy and a quiet substrate to cache in. Compared with when alone, birds cached less in the noisy substrate when with a conspecific that could hear but could not see them caching. By contrast, jays did not change the amount cached in the noisy substrate when they were with a competitor that could see and hear them caching compared with when they were alone. Together, these results suggest that jays reduce auditory information during caching as a cache-protection strategy. By contrast, as pilferers, jays did not attempt to conceal their presence from a cacher and did not prefer a silent viewing perch over a noisy one when observing caching. However, birds vocalized less when watching caching compared with when they were alone, when they were watching a non-caching conspecific or when they were watching their own caches being pilfered. Pilfering jays may therefore attempt to suppress some types of auditory information. Our results raise the possibility that jays both understand and can attribute auditory perception to another individual.

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“…Foodcaching non-corvids, such as some parids, for example, also manage their caches to prevent long-term loss (Male & Smulders 2007b) and appear to recognize potential pilferers, both conspecific and heterospecific (Pravosudov 2008). The article by Grodzinski & Clayton (2010) provides a thorough discussion on the evolution of complex cognition in food-caching corvids.…”

Section: Food Caching and Complex Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We assume that these mechanisms would interact with the physiological mechanisms that regulate appetite and satiety, but the details have not been completely worked out. In their review of cognitive solutions to problems faced by food-hoarding corvids, Grodzinski & Clayton (2010) briefly touch on some of the behavioural and environmental factors that influence the motivation of corvids to hoard food. Grodzinski & Clayton (2010) emphasized the impulsive and probable genetic nature of food caching at least in birds and the idea that pre-feeding a particular food type leads to a decrease in motivation to cache that food type and an increase in motivation to cache alternative food types.…”

Section: Motivation For Cachingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating ecology, psychology and neurobiology within a food-hoarding paradigm

Pravosudov

Smulders

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Many animals regularly hoard food for future use, which appears to be an important adaptation to a seasonally and/or unpredictably changing environment. This food-hoarding paradigm is an excellent example of a natural system that has broadly influenced both theoretical and empirical work in the field of biology. The food-hoarding paradigm has played a major role in the conceptual framework of numerous fields from ecology (e.g. plant -animal interactions) and evolution (e.g. the coevolution of caching, spatial memory and the hippocampus) to psychology (e.g. memory and cognition) and neurobiology (e.g. neurogenesis and the neurobiology of learning and memory). Many food-hoarding animals retrieve caches by using spatial memory. This memory-based behavioural system has the inherent advantage of being tractable for study in both the field and laboratory and has been shaped by natural selection, which produces variation with strong fitness consequences in a variety of taxa. Thus, food hoarding is an excellent model for a highly integrative approach to understanding numerous questions across a variety of disciplines. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the complexity of animal cognition such as future planning and episodic-like-memory as well as in the relationship between memory, the environment and the brain. In addition, new breakthroughs in neurobiology have enhanced our ability to address the mechanisms underlying these behaviours. Consequently, the field is necessarily becoming more integrative by assessing behavioural questions in the context of natural ecological systems and by addressing mechanisms through neurobiology and psychology, but, importantly, within an evolutionary and ecological framework. In this issue, we aim to bring together a series of papers providing a modern synthesis of ecology, psychology, physiology and neurobiology and identifying new directions and developments in the use of food-hoarding animals as a model system.

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Problems faced by food-caching corvids and the evolution of cognitive solutions

Cited by 81 publications

References 89 publications

Identification of a brain center whose activity discriminates a choice behavior in zebrafish

Identification of a brain center whose activity discriminates a choice behavior in zebrafish

Careful cachers and prying pilferers: Eurasian jays ( Garrulus glandarius ) limit auditory information available to competitors

Integrating ecology, psychology and neurobiology within a food-hoarding paradigm

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