COGNITIVE ABILITIES AND ADAPTATIONS TO MAN-MADE HABITAT CHANGES: BEHAVIOURAL AND MOLECULAR EVIDENCE

Important results from the project

The objectives of the project were achieved. I performed five studies: 1) a meta-analysis on the problem-solving ability of urban and rural animals, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution; 2) a review of cognition in parids and 3) an experiment testing problem-solving ability in great tits, manuscripts under revision; 4) an experiment on reversal learning in great tits and 5) a study on the effects of dopamine receptor (DRD4) genes on problem-solving, as part of an international collaboration. A sixth study, on mirror understanding in great tits, resulted in a master thesis.

Expected long term effects

In the meta-analysis, I found the expected trend that urban animals outperform their rural conspecifics in problem solving. However, I did not find this urban-rural difference in our problem-solving experiment on great tits; instead, there was a strong difference between study years. Problem-solving abilities were also better when the birds were homozygotes in three DRD4 polymorphisms. I also found reversal learning and color preference in great tits, and a sex difference in mirror understanding.

Approach and implementation

The project’s design shifted slightly compared to the initial proposal: the cognitive abilities in focus became innovative problem-solving and reversal learning, and the molecular analyses focused on genetic rather than physiological characteristics. The DRD4 sequencing was done by our international collaborators in Hungary. The time plan was largely followed, except the grant period was extended by 5 months during which manuscripts from two studies were prepared and data from two other studies were analyzed.