Specialized spatial cognition is associated with reduced cognitive senescence in a food-caching bird.

ABSTRACT: Senescence, the gradual reduction and loss of function as organisms age, is a widespread process that is especially pronounced in cognitive abilities. Senescence appears to have a genetic basis and can be affected by evolutionary processes. If cognitive senescence is shaped by natural selection, it may be linked with selection on cognitive abilities needed for survival and reproduction, such that species where fitness is directly related to cognitive abilities should evolve delayed cognitive senescence likely resulting in higher lifetime fitness. We used wild food-caching mountain chickadees, which rely on specialized spatial cognition to recover thousands of food caches annually, to test for cognitive senescence in spatial learning and memory and reversal spatial learning and memory abili

SUBMITTER: Heinen VK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8059976 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature