ArticleNature communications2018
Predictable evolution towards larger brains in birds colonizing oceanic islands.
Article in Nature communications, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The importance of migratory drop-off for island colonization in birds.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Pooled it
- Energy Constraints and Ecological Adaptation Drive Divergent Evolution of Sensory and Cognitive Brain Regions in Bats.Integrative zoology · 2026Article
- The flexible, the stereotyped and the in-between: putting together the combinatory tool use origins hypothesis.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Drivers and conservation impacts of innovative tree nesting in an isolated island population of the red-billed chough.Ecology · 2026Article
- Comparative Anatomy Supports the Evolution of Nocturnality in the Extinct Hawaiian Ibis Apteribis.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
- Proximate mechanisms underlying the coevolution of diet quality and relative brain size in primates.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Adaptations to marine environments and the evolution of slow-paced life histories in endotherms.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Repeated evolution on oceanic islands: comparative genomics reveals species-specific processes in birds.BMC ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Convergent evolution toward a slow pace of life predisposes insular endotherms to anthropogenic extinctions.Science advances · 2024Article
- Problem-solving skills are predicted by technical innovations in the wild and brain size in passerines.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Life-History and Ecological Correlates of Egg and Clutch Mass Variation in Sympatric Bird Species at High Altitude.Biology · 2023Article
- Songbird species that display more-complex vocal learning are better problem-solvers and have larger brains.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2023Article
- Evolution of Avian Eye Size Is Associated with Habitat Openness, Food Type and Brain Size.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Parental provisioning drives brain size in birds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Sociality, ecology and developmental constraints predict variation in brain size across birds.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2023Article
- Neuron numbers link innovativeness with both absolute and relative brain size in birds.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Article
- Relationship between flightlessness and brain morphology among Rallidae.Journal of anatomy · 2022Article
- Vultures as an overlooked model in cognitive ecology.Animal cognition · 2022Review
- Brain size, gut size and cognitive abilities: the energy trade-offs tested in artificial selection experiment.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Resident birds are more behaviourally plastic than migrants.Scientific reports · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Theory and evidence suggest that some selective pressures are more common on islands than in adjacent mainland habitats, leading evolution to follow predictable trends. The existence of predictable evolutionary trends has nonetheless been difficult to demonstrate, mainly because of the challenge of separating in situ evolution from sorting processes derived from colonization events. Here we use brain size measurements of >1900 avian species to reveal the existence of one such trend: increased brain size in island dwellers. Based on sister-taxa comparisons and phylogenetic ancestral trait estimations, we show that species living on islands have relatively larger brains than their mainland relatives and that these differences mainly reflect in situ evolution rather than varying colonization success. Our findings reinforce the view that in some instances evolution may be predictable, and yield insight into why some animals evolve larger brains despite substantial energetic and developmental costs.
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