Big brains stabilize populations and facilitate colonization of variable habitats in birds

• Published in: Nature ecology & evolution Vol. 1; no. 11; pp. 1706 - 1715
• Main Authors: Fristoe, Trevor S., Iwaniuk, Andrew N., Botero, Carlos A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.11.2017; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/158/1745; 631/158/852; 631/158/857; Animal Distribution; Animals; Biological and Physical Anthropology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Birds; Birds - anatomy & histology; Birds - physiology; Brain; Brain - anatomy & histology; Canada; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive ability; Colonization; Ecology; Ecosystem; Evolution; Evolutionary Biology; Habitats; Hypotheses; Life Sciences; Organ Size; Paleontology; Phylogeny; Population Dynamics; United States; Variability; Zoology
• ISSN: 2397-334X; 2397-334X
• DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0316-2

The cognitive buffer hypothesis posits that environmental variability can be a major driver of the evolution of cognition because an enhanced ability to produce flexible behavioural responses facilitates coping with the unexpected. Although comparative evidence supports different aspects of this hypothesis, a direct connection between cognition and the ability to survive a variable and unpredictable environment has yet to be demonstrated. Here, we use complementary demographic and evolutionary analyses to show that among birds, the mechanistic premise of this hypothesis is well supported but the implied direction of causality is not. Specifically, we show that although population dynamics are more stable and less affected by environmental variation in birds with larger relative brain sizes, the evolution of larger brains often pre-dated and facilitated the colonization of variable habitats rather than the other way around. Our findings highlight the importance of investigating the timeline of evolutionary events when interpreting patterns of phylogenetic correlation. The ability to cope with environmental variability is thought to be a major driver of brain-size evolution. Here, the authors show that cognitive capacity in birds may instead have pre-dated and facilitated the colonization of variable habitats.