The role of cognition and movement of seed-dispersing animals in shaping plant distributions

Abstract

In the wild, an evolutionary play takes place in an unchanging setting, or so current hypotheses on the evolution of spatiotemporal cognition of animals implicitly assume. However, if plant-eating vagile animals are likely to have their spatiotemporal cognition shaped by the distribution of plant resources, their movement may shape the way resources are distributed as well, for example by dispersing seeds. Using an agent-based model simulating the foraging behaviour of a seed disperser endowed with spatiotemporal knowledge of resource distribution, I investigated whether resource spatiotemporal patterns could be influenced by the level of cognition involved in foraging. This level of cognition represented how well resource location and phenology were predicted by the agent. I showed that seed dispersers could shape the long-term distribution of resources by materialising the routes repeatedly used by the forager with the newly recruited trees. This stemmed from the conjunction of two forces: competition for space between trees and a seed-dispersing forager moving from tree to tree based on spatiotemporal memory. In turn, resource landscape modifications affected the benefits of spatiotemporal memory, hence the selection gradient that applies to cognition. This could create eco-evolutionary feedback loops between animal spatiotemporal cognition and the distribution patterns of plant resources. Altogether, the results emphasise that foraging cognition is a cause and a consequence of resource heterogeneity.