The DOI matches its Crossref record; 9 of the 9 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Big brains, enhanced cognition, and response of birds to novel environments
Open accessAbstract
The widely held hypothesis that enlarged brains have evolved as an adaptation to cope with novel or altered environmental conditions lacks firm empirical support. Here, we test this hypothesis for a major animal group (birds) by examining whether large-brained species show higher survival than small-brained species when introduced to nonnative locations. Using a global database documenting the outcome of >600 introduction events, we confirm that avian species with larger brains, relative to their body mass, tend to be more successful at establishing themselves in novel environments. Moreover, we provide evidence that larger brains help birds respond to novel conditions by enhancing their innovation propensity rather than indirectly through noncognitive mechanisms. These findings provide strong evidence for the hypothesis that enlarged brains function, and hence may have evolved, to deal with changes in the environment.
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Citations
Cites
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Self-citationFeeding innovations and forebrain size in birds
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Self-citationRecolonizing Carnivores and Naïve Prey: Conservation Lessons from Pleistocene Extinctions
Berger, J., Swenson, J. E., & Persson, I.-L. (2001) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1056466 · Cited by 482
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JERISON, H. J. (1973) · Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-385250-2.50018-3 · Cited by 347
Visual specialization and brain evolution in primates
Barton, R. A. (1998) · Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.1998.0523 · Cited by 301
Can endocranial volume be used as an estimate of brain size in birds?
Iwaniuk, A. N., & Nelson, J. E. (2002) · Canadian Journal of Zoology · doi:10.1139/z01-204 · Cited by 228
Why is Brain Size so Important:Design Problems and Solutions as Neocortex Gets Biggeror Smaller
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Cited by
Dunbar, R. I. M., & Shultz, S. (2007) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1145463 · Cited by 1,542
The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions
Laland, K. N., Uller, T., Feldman, M. W., Sterelny, K., Müller, G. B., Moczek, A., Jablonka, E., & Odling-Smee, J. (2015) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.1019 · Cited by 1,399
Phenotypic plasticity's impacts on diversification and speciation
Pfennig, D. W., Wund, M. A., Snell-Rood, E. C., Cruickshank, T., Schlichting, C. D., & Moczek, A. P. (2010) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/j.tree.2010.05.006 · Cited by 1,170
The evolution of self-control.
MacLean, E. L., Hare, B., Nunn, C. L., Addessi, E., Amici, F., Anderson, R. C., Aureli, F., Baker, J. M., Bania, A. E., Barnard, A. M., et al. (2014) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1323533111 · Cited by 819
Geographical and taxonomic biases in invasion ecology
Pyšek, P., Richardson, D. M., Pergl, J., Jarošík, V., Sixtová, Z., & Weber, E. (2008) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/j.tree.2008.02.002 · Cited by 818
Metadata
- Authors
- Sol, D., Duncan, R. P., Blackburn, T. M., Cassey, P., & Lefebvre, L.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2005-03-22
- Volume
- 102
- Issue
- 15
- Pages
- 5460-5465
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- OpenAlex
- W1983774268
- Cited by
- 913
- References
- 9
- FWCI
- 30.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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- Sol, D., Duncan, R. P., Blackburn, T. M., Cassey, P., & Lefebvre, L. (2005). Big brains, enhanced cognition, and response of birds to novel environments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0408145102
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
