COSuccess · Testing the importance of oxidative stress and dietary antioxidants in linking cognitive traits and fitness in free living animals
„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“
- Период
- 2020-09-01 → 2023-02-28
- Финансиране от ЕС
- 272 090 €
- Участници
- 2
- Схема
- MSCA-IF
Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.
Накратко на български
Връзката между храненето, стареенето и способността на птиците да решават проблеми се проучва чрез анализ на окислителния стрес. Това помага да се разбере как когнитивните умения влияят върху оцеляването и успешното отглеждане на потомството в природата.
Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.
Резултати накратко
Testing the importance of oxidative stress and dietary antioxidants in linking cognitive traits and fitness in free living animals
Because cognitive abilities, such as innovation (i.e., the propensity to invent a new behaviour or to flexibly adjust established behaviours to solve new problems) and learning (i.e., the acquisition of information through experience that may cause a change in behaviour), can help animals to quickly adapt to their changing environments, these abilities are expected to be under strong selection and be key components of species evolutionary success. However, why there is such large inter-individual variation in cognitive abilities, and why and how cognitive abilities are related to fitness remain largely unknown. The aim of this project was to investigate, in a natural bird population, the role of ageing and oxidative stress on inter-individual variation in cognitive performances, and how food (dietary antioxidants), oxidative stress, and cognition interact together in shaping fitness in natural populations. Overall, this Marie Curie Fellowship was a success at demonstrating that (i) ageing individuals showed a decline in problem-solving performance, potentially via increased oxidative stress with age, (ii) problem-solving performance influenced reproductive success through the ability to find large amount of high quality food in the environment to provision their chicks, and (iii) the experimental supply of food rich in antioxidant during chick growth positively influences the cognitive performance of the same individuals in adulthood. These results confirm the importance of ageing and diet in the inter-individual variation in problem-solving ability and in the link between cognition and fitness.
Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз
Цел на проекта
Cognitive abilities should be beneficial for individuals to optimize decisions when facing environmental changes in the wildand recent studies have shown that inter-individual variation in cognitive performances is related to variation in fitness, inparticular reproductive success. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether the links between cognition and success arecausal or driven by a third confounding factor, such as ageing. In humans and laboratory animals, decline in mitochondrialnumbers or functioning and increased oxidative stress has been shown to directly contribute to the ageing- or brainpathology-related decline in cognitive performances. Hence, one hypothesis is that a shift in the oxidative balance inparticular with age leads to fast accumulation of oxidative damage in metabolically active tissues, such as the brain andmuscles, which in turn leads to a decline in cognition and physical performances, and ultimately explains the age-relateddecline in reproductive performances and survival. This first scenario predicts that links between cognition and fitness areentirely explained by a third variable, the oxidative balance. However, animals can acquire antioxidants from their diet andcognitive capacities are important to search for and better exploit food resources. Therefore, an alternative hypothesispredicts a causal relationship between cognition and fitness that is driven by the ability of birds to adequately exploit theirhabitat for healthy food for themselves and their offspring. In COSuccess, I will use a long-term database, carefully designedexperiments fin the field, state-of-art laboratory and statistical methods to reveal how physiology and cognition interacttogether in shaping fitness. Findings from this project will lead to important gains of knowledge on (i) whether cognition isunder selection (i.e. causally linked to fitness) and (ii) the importance of cognition and access to dietary antioxidants inmitigating ageing.
Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).
Участници
- SCHWEIZERISCHE VOGELWARTE SEMPACH · SEMPACHКоординаторШвейцария
- THE UNIVERSITY COURT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN · AberdeenОбединеното кралство
Връзки
Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз