Rufous hummingbirds' memory for flower location

Henderson, Jonathan; Hurly, T. Andrew; Healy, Susan D.

doi:10.1006/anbe.2000.1670

Cited by 54 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In fact, the capacity to memorize specific exemplars and events may represent a fundamental and general adaptation of the avian nervous system. Various species of birds have been found to have durable long-term memories for specific foraging (Henderson, Hurly, & Healy, 2001) and migratory (MettkeHoffman & Gwinner, 2003) experiences. Within the auditory modality, reports have indicated that some birds can distinguish among relatively large numbers (Ͻ64) of conspecific songs (Chew, Vicario, & Notebohm, 1996;Stoddard, Beecher, Loesche, & Campbell, 1992), and mockingbirds have learned repertoires of 150 or more heterospecific songs (Derrickson, 1987).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capacity and limits of associative memory in pigeons

Cook

Levison

Gillett

et al. 2005

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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How does the brain encode, store, and retrieve an entire lifetime of experiences? Biological memory capacity has been extensively studied with regard to the short-term retention of recent information (Miller, 1956;Nelson, 2001), and a system with a limited capacity in the single digits has consistently been suggested. Such findings suggest that the brain may have multiple memory systems, and numerous longer term stores (e.g., procedural, episodic, long-term, semantic, associative, and reference memory) have been proposed to capture the extensive knowledge and memories stored beyond those of the recent past. One challenging issue concerns the storage capacity and information retrieval of these longer term memory mechanisms. Attempts to examine the capacity of such longer term memory stores have been limited and mainly computational (Dudai, 1997;Landauer, 1986;Standing, 1973). Although there is general agreement that the human capacity for recognizing pictorial information is considerable (Shepard, 1967;Standing, 1973) and the storage needs for language use substantial, the empirical study of long-term memory capacity has been virtually absent because of the impractical requirements of testing humans over extended periods.Nonhuman animals are similarly guided by a combination of acquired knowledge and recent experiences, but here as well, little effort has been directed at understanding the capacity of their longer term memory systems. Vaughan and Greene (1984) conducted the most extensive study of animal memory capacity. They showed that pigeons could discriminate among 320 randomly assigned pictorial stimuli (160 positive and 160 negative) in a successive go/no-go discrimination. On the basis of a smaller stimulus set (160), they further demonstrated that some of these memories endure for at least 2 years. There are some important limitations, however, to these findings. Their rate-based discrimination procedure and rankorder measure of performance were not designed to yield a measure of how many stimuli were retained, for example. Thus, their pigeons' above-chance discrimination could have been accomplished with considerably fewer than the 320 pictures being memorized. Furthermore, the testing of all 320 stimuli was quite brief, making it impossible to judge the long-term effects of high memory load. Since then, the capacity of pigeons to remember large numbers of pictures has been confirmed. Von Fersen and Delius (1989) used a two-alternative choice proceThis research was supported by a grant from the Animal Behavior program of the National Science Foundation to R.G.C., who thanks everyone in the Cook lab for assistance in conducting these experiments over the last 3 years and Taylor Johnson and Angie Koban for their comments on earlier drafts. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to R. G. Cook, Department of Psychology, Tufts University, 530 Bacon Hall, Medford, MA 02155 (e-mail: robert.cook@tufts.edu; home page, www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu). How much information can a brain store over a li...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capacity and limits of associative memory in pigeons

Cook

Levison

Gillett

et al. 2005

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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“…Although it usually forages in trap-lines by visiting different species, R. naevius spent certain amount of time on an exclusive species, a pattern corroborated by the herein presented results for the same locality but using an independent and different source of data. The pollen mixture dominance by one plant species may reiterate the hummingbird habit of choosing one main species and also getting some nectar from others (Henderson et al 2001) or may just be a consequence of the resource abundance in the area (Justino et al 2011), an issue for further studies.…”

Section: Transported Pollen Grainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heterospecific pollen deposition among plants sharing hummingbird pollinators in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

et al. 2016

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Hummingbirds are the most important group of pollinating birds in the Neotropics and tend to use, concomitantly, more than one plant species as food source. Pollen may be mixed on hummingbirds' body due to the visits to different plant species; therefore, these birds may promote heterospecific pollen deposition (HPD). The hummingbirds potential to promote HPD, the occurrence of HPD and its implications in plant reproduction are scarcely known in the Atlantic Forest. We have studied the transport of pollen by three hummingbird species from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We have also checked the actual HPD occurrence under natural conditions in two plant species, namely Canistropsis seidelii and Psychotria nuda. Moreover, we investigated Nidularium innocentii reproductive system evaluating the effect of HPD on its reproduction by simulating a pollen mixture pollination. We found hummingbirds transporting heterospecific pollen mixtures on their bodies, which in turn were deposited onto stigmas of different species. We have also found that mixed pollen deposition had negative effect on the fitness of N. innocentii. We conclude that hummingbirds carry pollen mixtures at the same body parts, leading to potential HPD at the community level. Moreover, hummingbird-plant communities in the Atlantic Rainforest show remarkable similarities in temporal organization and interaction pattern. This suggests that HPD may be a widespread phenomena in these communities. Key words: competition for pollination, fruit/seed set, pollen placement, pollen load, pollinator sharing, reproductive success. ResumoBeija-flores são o grupo de aves polinizadoras mais importantes nos Neotrópicos e tendem a utilizar, concomitantemente, mais de uma espécie de planta como fonte de alimento. O pólen pode estar misturado no corpo dos beija-flores devido às visitas em diferentes espécies de plantas, portanto, essas aves podem promover deposição de pólen heterospecífico (DPH). O potencial dos beija-flores em promover DPH, a ocorrência de DPH e suas consequências na reprodução das plantas são pouco conhecidas na Mata Atlântica. Nós estudamos o transporte de pólen por três espécies de beija--flores da Mata Atlântica brasileira. Nós também verificamos a ocorrência de DPH em condições naturais em duas espécies de planta, Canistropsis seidelii e Psychotria nuda. Além disso, nós investigamos o sistema reprodutivo de Nidularium innocentii, avaliando o efeito de DPH em sua reprodução ao simular uma polinização com mistura de pólen. Nós encontramos beija-flores transportando misturas de pólen heterospecífico em seus corpos, que por sua vez foram depositados nos estigmas de diferentes espécies. Nós também encontramos que a deposição de mistura de pólen tem um efeito negativo na aptidão de N. innocentii. Nós concluimos que beija-flores carregam misturas de pólen na mesma região do corpo, levando a um potencial DPH ao nível da comunidade. Além disso, comunidades de plantas e beija-flores na Floresta Atlântica exibem diversas similaridades em sua organização...

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“…In order to feed efficiently, they must remember what flowers they have visited, the locations of high nectar-rewarding flowers and a host of additional spatial-temporal information. A combination of field and laboratory studies demonstrate that hummingbirds can remember the nectar quality and content of individual flowers [2], nectar-refilling rates [3], spatial location and distribution of flowers [1], avoid revisiting recently sampled flowers [4,5] and rely on 'episodic-like' memory for daily foraging [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hummingbirds have a greatly enlarged hippocampal formation

et al. 2012

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Both field and laboratory studies demonstrate that hummingbirds (Apodiformes, Trochilidae) have exceptional spatial memory. The complexity of spatial-temporal information that hummingbirds must retain and use daily is probably subserved by the hippocampal formation (HF), and therefore, hummingbirds should have a greatly expanded HF. Here, we compare the relative size of the HF in several hummingbird species with that of other birds. Our analyses reveal that the HF in hummingbirds is significantly larger, relative to telencephalic volume, than any bird examined to date. When expressed as a percentage of telencephalic volume, the hummingbird HF is two to five times larger than that of caching and non-caching songbirds, seabirds and woodpeckers. This HF expansion in hummingbirds probably underlies their ability to remember the location, distribution and nectar content of flowers, but more detailed analyses are required to determine the extent to which this arises from an expansion of HF or a decrease in size of other brain regions.

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Rufous hummingbirds' memory for flower location

Cited by 54 publications

References 24 publications

Capacity and limits of associative memory in pigeons

Capacity and limits of associative memory in pigeons

Heterospecific pollen deposition among plants sharing hummingbird pollinators in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

Hummingbirds have a greatly enlarged hippocampal formation

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