Abstract
Comparative cognitive and behavior research aims to investigate cognitive evolution by comparing performance in different species to understand how these abilities have evolved. Ideally, this requires large and diverse samples; however, these can be difficult to obtain by single labs or institutions, leading to potential reproducibility and generalization issues with small, less representative samples. To help mitigate these issues, we are establishing a multi-site collaborative Open Science approach called ManyBirds, with the aim of providing new insight into the evolution of avian cognition and behavior through large-scale comparative studies, following the lead of exemplary ManyPrimates, ManyBabies and ManyDogs projects. Here, we outline a) the replicability crisis and why we should study birds, including the origin of modern birds, avian brains and convergent evolution of cognition; b) the current state of the avian cognition field, including a ‘snapshot’ review; c) the ManyBirds project, with plans, infrastructure, limitations, implications and future directions. In sharing this process, we hope that this may be useful for other researchers in devising similar projects in other taxa, like non-avian reptiles or mammals, and to encourage further collaborations with ManyBirds and related ManyX projects. Ultimately, we hope to promote collaboration between ManyX projects to allow for wider investigation of the evolution of cognition across all animals, including potentially humans.
Highlights
Cognition may be broadly defined as including perception, learning, decision-making and memory (Shettleworth, 2010)
We focus on: a) why birds, including avian brains and convergent evolution; b) the current state of the avian cognition field, including a ‘snapshot’ review of avian cognition from 2015-2020, across 30 journals and 550+ articles; c) the ManyBirds project, including project plans, current stage, limitations, implications and future research
In order to gain a broad overview of contemporary avian cognition research including the species, topics, and sites of study, we reviewed the recent avian cognition literature from 2015-2020, across select journals, encompassing 550+ articles
Summary
Cognition may be broadly defined as including perception, learning, decision-making and memory (Shettleworth, 2010). To do so ideally requires data from a large number of individuals and species using methods that generate reliable cross-species comparisons; these remain two of the major challenges faced by the field (Krasheninnikova et al, 2020) These issues have been raised early on in the field’s history, starting most notably with Beach’s (1950) criticism of comparative psychology for the limited number of topics studied in very few species, which precluded the field’s original aim to derive and test theories through multi-species comparisons (Thorndike, 1911). These efforts provide an encouraging way forward and a viable means of addressing issues of sample size, replicability, and generalization, and can be extended to other taxa (such as the planned ManyDogs project)
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