Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

My research program aims to understand the evolution of complex cognitive abilities. One fundamental cognitive process I investigate is spatial cognition – the ability to locomote effectively through an environment – an important ability for all mobile organisms. My research team and I use a comparative approach to investigate how animals living in different environments, with diverse ecological pressures, solve the problem of remembering from whence they have come, and where they need to go. I have proposed two new lines of research focusing on how birds use spatial information to regain a sense of direction (reorientation). One research line will used controlled rearing conditions to understand how early life environmental experiences shape how spatial cues are encoded. My research will determine if duration differences in the juvenile maturation periods of birds cause some species (chicks) to come “preprogrammed” with spatial modules whereas others (pigeons) are more influenced by their rearing environment. A second related research line will examine how ecological pressures influence the way birds extract spatial information from their environment. My HQP and I will examine four species of North American corvid that store food in times of plenty (autumn) for periods of scarcity (winter), but differ in how dependent they are on these food caches. Dependency on food-caches may influence not only how species weigh spatial information, but also their sensitivity to the reliability of spatial cues.

Conceptualizing that objects share abstract qualities, such as "sameness" or "differentness", and being able to apply this concept to new experiences, is an important cognitive ability once thought limited to primates. I am investigating the ability of corvids to show abstract-concept learning. My research has shown that unlike other bird species, but similar to primates, Clark’s nutcrackers and black-billed magpies are able to form an abstract-concept when only presented with a few exemplars. I propose to investigate whether this ability is shared by other members of the family Corvidae, or if ecological factors influence this complex cognitive trait.

My research program focuses on investigating how environment and evolution shape complex cognitive abilities. This research will provide a foundation to advance our understanding of the evolution of cognition, influencing a broad community of scientists from areas such as neuroscience, wildlife conservation and policy, animal ethics and husbandry, and the health sciences.