Performance of sheep in simple spatial memory tasks

Abstract

Plant species or vegetation characteristics (e.g. sward height) are often distributed in patches within a background of continuous vegetation. Grazing animals exploit this spatial heterogeneity by concentrating their foraging in patches that are of preferred species or in patches that offer high rates of intake (Bazely, 1988). However, little is known of the mechanisms or individual behaviours that animals use to accomplish this preferential patch use. One hypothesis proposed to account for the preferential patch use is that animals remember information about the spatial distribution of the patches they encounter and use this information on subsequent foraging bouts to increase the rate at which they encounter preferred food patches (Bell, 1991). In this study, we tested whether sheep could remember the spatial location of patches in simple and complex environments or whether they needed continually to sample to know what was located in each area.