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The most efficient mechanism for relocation of cached and scattered food is memory. Birds that are dependent on stored food for winter survival will store thousands of caches. To remember that many caches for long time periods is a demanding task that may require physiological investments in memory mechanisms. It seems like some long-term hoarders (for example nutcrackers) can remember an almost unlimited number of caches for a year or even longer. Other long-term hoarders (like willow tits) seem to lack this ability even though they are as dependent on stored food. We study differences in memory between such species, both theoretically and on a physiological level. The latter approach includes comparisons of brain structures such as the hippocampus in hoarders and nonhoarders.
I collaborate with Dr Vladimir Pravosudov of the Department of Biology, University of Nevada at Reno, USA, on my research on the evolution of spatial memory and the hippocampus in food-caching birds, and, in particular, on comparing hippocampal and brain size between Eurasian and North American species. In collaboration with Professor David Sherry of the Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada I am using imaging techniques to examine seasonal change in the hippocampus of food-storing birds and neural network modelling to analyze the effects of adding new neurons to adult neural networks.
1. Brodin A. and Bolhuis J.J. In press. Memory and brain in food storing birds: space oddities or adaptive specialisations? Ethology. 2. Brodin, A. 2005. Hippocampus volume does not correlate to food hoarding rates in the field in two closely related bird species, the black-capped chickadee Poecile atricapilla and the willow tit Parus montanus. Auk 122: 819-828. 3. Brodin, A. 2005. Mechanisms of cache retrieval in long-term hoarding birds. J Ethol 23: 77-83. 4. Brodin, A., Kunz, C. 1997. An experimental study of cache recovery by hoarding willow tits after different retention intervals. Behaviour 134: 881-890. 5. Lucas, J.R., Brodin, A., de Kort, S.R. & Clayton, N.S. 2004. Does hippocampal volume size correlate with the degree of caching specialization? Proc Roy Soc Lond B Biol Sci 271: 2423-2429. 6. Brodin A, Lundborg K. Is hippocampus volume affected by specialisation for food hoarding in birds? Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2003; 270:1555-1563
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