Research Jan Baert

Abstract

In recent years it has become clear that most animals have the ability to learn and that this often plays an important role in how individuals adjust their behaviours throughout their lives. Yet, how learning ultimately contributes to behavioural variation within populations is still poorly known. This project investigates the functioning and consequences of reward-based learning – a simple and universal mechanism by which individuals adapt their behaviour through reinforcement of successful actions – through an innovative combination of modelling, lab and field experiments. First, a theoretical framework is developed using an individual-based modelling approach to disentangle how interactions between environmental conditions, heritable behavioural traits and rewardbased learning shape behavioural variation within populations within an ecological and evolutionary context. Next, the predicted ecoevolutionary interactions are validated using lab experiments with Field Crickets (Gryllus campestris), a model organism in which reward-based learning is the dominant type of learning. Finally, the generality of the predicted patterns of behavioural variation for wild populations are tested by means of a field experiment with Great Tits (Parus major), a model organism with highly developed cognitive skills. As such, the project will provide important new insights into the role of non-genetic variation, as caused by reward-based learning, for ecological and evolutionary processes.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Müller Wendt
• Fellow: Baert Jan

Research team(s)

• Behavioural Ecology & Ecophysiology

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

A central tenet in evolutionary biology is that populations adapt to their environment with every generation through the process of natural selection. In long-lived species such as gulls (Larus spp.), environmental changes may however also occur at timescales much shorter than generations, which is the timeframe over which evolution acts. Individuals should therefore benefit from being able to (partly) adjust their physiology or behaviour to environmental changes throughout their lifetime. Such adjustments are nevertheless believed to be costly in terms of time or energy, and may thus jeopardize an organism's reproduction or survival. Individuals must therefore benefit when they are able to assess the reliability of environmental cues and the extent to which current adjustment costs may be offset by future benefits. Yet, current ecological theory generally assumes that individuals exhibit a constant degree of plasticity throughout their lifetime, tracking environmental changes to the best of their ability, irrespective of the entailed costs. In this project, I will elaborate further on this theory by assessing to what extent two co-occuring gull species adjust their foraging strategies throughout their lifetime in response to (a)biotic environmental cues, how such plasticity in foraging niche use may trade off with other life-history traits, and how individual differences in niche plasticity may therefore persist over evolutionary timescales.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Müller Wendt
• Fellow: Baert Jan

Research team(s)

• Behavioural Ecology & Ecophysiology

Project type(s)

• Research Project