Hardie, J.L. and Cooney, C.R. orcid.org/0000-0002-4872-9146 (2023) Sociality, ecology and developmental constraints predict variation in brain size across birds. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 36 (1). pp. 144-155. ISSN 1010-061X
Abstract
Conflicting theories have been proposed to explain variation in relative brain size across the animal kingdom. Ecological theories argue that the cognitive demands of seasonal or unpredictable environments have selected for increases in relative brain size, whereas the ‘social brain hypothesis’ argues that social complexity is the primary driver of brain size evolution. Here, we use a comparative approach to test the relative importance of ecology (diet, foraging niche and migration), sociality (social bond, cooperative breeding and territoriality) and developmental mode in shaping brain size across 1886 bird species. Across all birds, we find a highly significant effect of developmental mode and foraging niche on brain size, suggesting that developmental constraints and selection for complex motor skills whilst foraging generally imposes important selection on brain size in birds. We also find effects of social bonding and territoriality on brain size, but the direction of these effects do not support the social brain hypothesis. At the same time, we find extensive heterogeneity among major avian clades in the relative importance of different variables, implying that the significance of particular ecological and social factors for driving brain size evolution is often clade- and context-specific. Overall, our results reveal the important and complex ways in which ecological and social selection pressures and developmental constraints shape brain size evolution across birds.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors. Journal of Evolutionary Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Society for Evolutionary Biology. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | birds; brain; brain size; developmental mode; ecology; sociality |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) > Department of Biomedical Science (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL NE/T01105X/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 21 Nov 2022 12:54 |
Last Modified: | 26 Sep 2024 09:10 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/jeb.14117 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:193617 |