Digest: environmental variability as a constraint on cognitive evolution in lizards

Benjamin J. Ashton, Simon Baeckens*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

How does ecology influence cognitive evolution in lizards? Taking a comparative approach, De Meester et al. (2022) discovered that species living in temporally fluctuating environments tend to perform relatively poorly on cognitive tasks associated with behavioral flexibility compared to species living in more climatically stable environments. The negative association between environmental variability and cognitive performance suggests that stochastic environments can hamper, rather than stimulate, the evolution of cognitive ability.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)625-626
Number of pages2
JournalEvolution
Volume77
Issue number2
Early online date16 Dec 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2023

Keywords

  • cognition
  • cognitive buffer hypothesis
  • comparative cognition
  • expensive brain hypothesis
  • lacertidae
  • learning

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