Artificial selection for reversal learning reveals limited repeatability and no heritability of cognitive flexibility in great tits (Parus major)

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dc.contributor.authorvan den Heuvel, Kristaen
dc.contributor.authorQuinn, John L.en
dc.contributor.authorKotrschal, Alexanderen
dc.contributor.authorvan Oers, Keesen
dc.date.accessioned2023-09-05T10:07:30Z
dc.date.available2023-09-05T10:07:30Z
dc.date.issued2023-07-19en
dc.description.abstractCognitive flexibility controls how animals respond to changing environmental conditions. Individuals within species vary considerably in cognitive flexibility but the micro-evolutionary potential in animal populations remains enigmatic. One prerequisite for cognitive flexibility to be able to evolve is consistent and heritable among-individual variation. Here we determine the repeatability and heritability of cognitive flexibility among great tits (Parus major) by performing an artificial selection experiment on reversal learning performance using a spatial learning paradigm over three generations. We found low, yet significant, repeatability (R = 0.15) of reversal learning performance. Our artificial selection experiment showed no evidence for narrow-sense heritability of associative or reversal learning, while we confirmed the heritability of exploratory behaviour. We observed a phenotypic, but no genetic, correlation between associative and reversal learning, showing the importance of prior information on reversal learning. We found no correlation between cognitive and personality traits. Our findings emphasize that cognitive flexibility is a multi-faceted trait that is affected by memory and prior experience, making it challenging to retrieve reliable values of temporal consistency and assess the contribution of additive genetic variation. Future studies need to identify what cognitive components underlie variation in reversal learning and study their between-individual and additive genetic components.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.articleid20231067en
dc.identifier.citationvan den Heuvel, K., Quinn, J. L., Kotrschal, A.and van Oers, K. (2023) 'Artificial selection for reversal learning reveals limited repeatability and no heritability of cognitive flexibility in great tits (Parus major)', Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 290(2003), 20231067. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2023.1067en
dc.identifier.doi10.1098/rspb.2023.1067en
dc.identifier.eissn1471-2954en
dc.identifier.issn0962-8452en
dc.identifier.issued2003en
dc.identifier.journaltitleProceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciencesen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/14905
dc.identifier.volume290en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherThe Royal Societyen
dc.relation.ispartofProceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciencesen
dc.rights© 2023, The authors. Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. This manuscript version is made available under the CC BY 4.0 license.en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.subjectCognitionen
dc.subjectArtificial selectionen
dc.subjectAnimal personalityen
dc.subjectQuantitative geneticsen
dc.subjectReversal learningen
dc.subject~Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences - Journal Articles~en
dc.titleArtificial selection for reversal learning reveals limited repeatability and no heritability of cognitive flexibility in great tits (Parus major)en
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
oaire.citation.issue2003en
oaire.citation.volume290en
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