ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2024
Smarter foragers do not forage smarter: a test of the diet hypothesis for brain expansion.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Foraging with your eyes: a novel task to study cognitive strategies involved in (visual) foraging behaviour.Cognitive processing · 2025Article
- Smarter foragers do not forage smarter: a test of the diet hypothesis for brain expansion.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
A leading hypothesis for the evolution of large brains in humans and other species is that a feedback loop exists whereby intelligent animals forage more efficiently, which results in increased energy intake that fuels the growth and maintenance of large brains. We test this hypothesis for the first time with high-resolution tracking data from four sympatric, frugivorous rainforest mammal species (42 individuals) and drone-based maps of their predominant feeding trees. We found no evidence that larger-brained primates had more efficient foraging paths than smaller brained procyonids. This refutes a key assumption of the fruit-diet hypothesis for brain evolution, suggesting that other factors such as temporal cognition, extractive foraging or sociality have been more important for brain evolution.
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Registered trials
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