Neuroecology

Question 1

Cognitive specialisation example

Answer 1

Long delay taste aversion in rats (generalists)

Question 2

Hippocampus size in food storers examples

Answer 2

Alaskan black-capped chickadees: larger size than those in Colorado who cache less and take more searches to find food

Coal tits(hoarders) and great tits(non-hoarders): (cognitive differences) touchscreen lab experiments of delayed non matching to sample, coal tits had an avg of 70% correct at a longer rentention intervals than great tits

Chickadees: immediate early genes activated during hoarding in the hippocampus and short term inactivation of hippocampus affects spatial memory

Seasonal variation: Hippocampus size in willow tits only larger than great tits during autumn

Juvenile marsh tits: hippo size increased with experience of food hoarding

Question 3

Brood parasitism and food hoarding

Answer 3

Baywinged cowbirds = not brood parasite, screaming cowbird = males and females search for nests, shiny cowbirds = female only searches for nests

Brood parasites have larger hippocampus than non brood parasites. Females that search alone have larger hippocampus size than males

Question 4

Neural specialisation examples

Answer 4

Olfactory bulb size is larger in nocturnal birds than diurnal birds

Starnosed mole has individual feelers that directly map on to areas of the brain