Meeting Abstract

85.5  Friday, Jan. 7  Learning capabilities enhanced in harsh environments ROTH, Timothy C*; LADAGE, Lara D; PRAVOSUDOV, Vladimir V; Univ. of Nevada, Reno; Univ. of Nevada, Reno; Univ. of Nevada, Reno tcroth@unr.edu

Previous studies have suggested that the ability to inhabit harsh environments may be linked to advanced learning traits. However, it is not clear if individuals express such traits as a consequence of experiencing a challenging environment or if these traits are a product of differential selection pressures. To assess the influence of selection on variation in cognition, we used a common garden approach to examine the response to novelty and problem solving of two populations of black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) from the latitudinal extremes of the species’ range found previously to exhibit differences in brain morphology and memory. We found that birds from the northern population, where selection for cognitive abilities is expected to be high, significantly outperformed conspecifics from the southern population in both tasks. Our results suggest that the cognitive differences between the populations may be inherited, as individuals from both populations were raised in and had experienced identical environmental conditions. Although our data suggest an effect independent of experience, we cannot rule out maternal effects or developmental factors with our design. Nevertheless, our results support the idea that environmental severity may indeed be an important factor for the evolution of cognition.