Preference for spatial cues in a non-storing songbird species

Abstract

Male mammals typically outperform their conspecific females on spatial tasks. A sex difference in cues used to solve the task could underlie this performance difference as spatial ability is reliant on appropriate cue use. Although comparative studies of memory in food-storing and non-storing birds have examined species differences in cue preference, few studies have investigated differences in cue use within a species. In this study, we used a one-trial associative food-finding task to test for sex differences in cue use in the great tit, Parus major. Birds were trained to locate a food reward hidden in a well covered by a coloured cloth. To determine whether the colour of the cloth or the location of the well was learned during training, the birds were presented with three wells in the test phase: one in the original location, but covered by a cloth of a novel colour, a second in a new location covered with the original cloth and a third in a new location covered by a differently coloured cloth. Both sexes preferentially visited the well in the training location rather than either alternative. As great tits prefer colour cues over spatial cues in one-trial associative conditioning tasks, cue preference appears to be related to the task type rather than being species dependent.

No delayed behavioral and phenotypic responses to experimental early-life lead exposure in great tits (Parus major)

“…A sketch of the feeding tray is also included, see details in the text. Red squares denote the red felt flaps covering holes in the feeding tray test day (as in Hodgson and Healy 2005). These measures of learning were used because there was a high degree of variability in learning performance, since some birds never learnt to use the tray.…”

“…The effect of early-life exposure to Pb on learning and spatial memory was tested following slightly modified protocols from Hodgson and Healy (2005) and Arnold et al (2007) where a food tray was used. Only spatial cues (location of the reward) were tested.…”

Brain activation pattern depends on the strategy chosen by zebra finches to solve an orientation task

“…One explanation for this difference is that spatial cues in a changing environment may generally be more reliable over longer time periods compared with local cues. Storers need to relocate caches over long periods and may therefore be under a particular selection pressure (Clayton and Krebs, 1994;Brodbeck, 1994;Herz et al, 1994;Brodbeck and Shettleworth, 1995) (but see Hodgson and Healy, 2005;LaDage et al, 2009;Feenders and Smulders, 2011).…”

Wild, free-living rufous hummingbirds do not use geometric cues in a spatial task

“…The degree to which a given species is reliant on a cue is probably driven by its particular salience in the immediate environment, the quality of its informational content, and its utility to the species in question (Hodgson and Healy, 2005). In contrast, the geometric cues do not seem to be context-dependent (reviewed in Tommasi et al, 2012), and their use, until recently (i.e., Hurly et al, 2014), has only been investigated in the laboratory.…”