ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2016
Environmental and genetic determinants of innovativeness in a natural population of birds.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of sibling competition and physiological and behavioural differences on problem-solving of wild cavies (Cavia aperea).Animal cognition · 2026Article
- To pull or push? Performance of four passerine species in the lever-pulling task.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Bumble bees that follow a stricter routine innovate less: Foraging behaviors, environmental complexity, and how they relate to novel problem solving.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Are lateralized and bold fish optimistic or pessimistic?Animal cognition · 2024Article
- Heritability of cognitive performance in wild Western Australian magpies.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Article
- Genetic and context-specific effects on individual inhibitory control performance in the guppy (Poecilia reticulata).Journal of evolutionary biology · 2023Article
- Artificial selection for reversal learning reveals limited repeatability and no heritability of cognitive flexibility in great tits (Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Innovative problem-solving in a small, wild canid.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Problem solving in fawn-footed mosaic-tailed rats Melomys cervinipes is not significantly influenced by maternal care or genetic effects.Journal of experimental zoology. Part A, Ecological and integrative physiology · 2022Article
- Exploring the interplay between natural and intersexual selection on the evolution of a cognitive trait.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Animal Creativity as a Function of Behavioral Innovation and Behavior Flexibility in Problem-solving Situations.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2022Article
- Serotonin transporter (SERT) polymorphisms, personality and problem-solving in urban great tits.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Problem Solving in Animals: Proposal for an Ontogenetic Perspective.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Review
- Diet induces parallel changes to the gut microbiota and problem solving performance in a wild bird.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Multiple factors affect discrimination learning performance, but not between-individual variation, in wild mixed-species flocks of birds.Royal Society open science · 2020Article
- Measuring and understanding individual differences in cognition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Repeatable aversion across threat types is linked with life-history traits but is dependent on how aversion is measured.Royal Society open science · 2018Article
- Innovation: an emerging focus from cells to societies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Article
- Animal and human innovation: novel problems and novel solutions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
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Abstract
Much of the evidence for the idea that individuals differ in their propensity to innovate and solve new problems has come from studies on captive primates. Increasingly, behavioural ecologists are studying innovativeness in wild populations, and uncovering links with functional behaviour and fitness-related traits. The relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in driving this variation, however, remains unknown. Here, we present the results of the first large-scale study to examine a range of causal factors underlying innovative problem-solving performance (PSP) among 831 great tits (Parus major) temporarily taken into captivity. Analyses show that PSP in this population: (i) was linked to a variety of individual factors, including age, personality and natal origin (immigrant or local-born); (ii) was influenced by natal environment, because individuals had a lower PSP when born in poor-quality habitat, or where local population density was high, leading to cohort effects. Links with many of the individual and environmental factors were present only in some years. In addition, PSP (iii) had little or no measurable heritability, as estimated by a Bayesian animal model; and (iv) was not influenced by maternal effects. Despite previous reports of links between PSP and a range of functional traits in this population, the analyses here suggest that innovativeness had weak if any evolutionary potential. Instead most individual variation was caused by phenotypic plasticity driven by links with other behavioural traits and by environmentally mediated developmental stress. Heritability estimates are population, time and context specific, however, and more studies are needed to determine the generality of these effects. Our results shed light on the causes of innovativeness within populations, and add to the debate on the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in driving phenotypic variation within populations.
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