Western study reveals that 'survival of the fittest' forgets about intelligence

A new study, published in the high impact journal Science, confirms enhanced cognitive abilities can be associated with longer lifespan in mountain chickadees. (Source: Vladimir V. Pravosudov)

Although brawn has been attributed to species survival in the animal kingdom, a new study shows that brains also contribute.

Western animal behaviour and cognition researcher Carrie Branch and others tracked the cognition of 227 mountain chickadees for over 10 years, and found that birds with better special learning and memory lived longer on average.

Despite the small size of chickadees, which comes part and parcel with smaller brain size, mountain chickadees performed extremely well in a series of cognitive experiments. 

“Animals have two interests. They want to survive, and they want to reproduce, so the smart thing for them to do is whatever allows those two things to happen. We found for mountain chickadees that means knowing where to collect food, successfully storing it and remembering where they stored it so they can retrieve it later,” said Branch.

A tagged mountain chickadee arrives at a feeder awaiting its seed. (Source: Vladimir V. Pravosudov)

The study used an array of radio frequency-based feeders, which featured doors that opened automatically for tagged birds, providing food when they landed on the perch. Although it seems fairly simple, over more than a decade of observation, researchers found that birds with the best spatial recall will live on average two years longer.

A feeder array used to reward the birds upon successful return (Source: Western University)

That's because habitually, chickadees store seeds away for the winter months when food is more plentiful.

Although it has long been suspected that cognitive ability was a factor in the survival of animal species, experiments often rely on imprecise measurements like brain size to indicate intelligence.