Previous studies have demonstrated a correlation between longevity and brain size in a variety of taxa. Little research has been devoted to understanding this link in parrots; yet parrots are well-known for both their exceptionally long lives and cognitive complexity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We employed a large-scale comparative analysis that investigated the influence of brain size and life-history variables on longevity in parrots. Specifically, we addressed two hypotheses for evolutionary drivers of longevity: the\u00a0cognitive<\/em>\u00a0buffer hypothesis<\/em>, which proposes that increased cognitive abilities enable longer lifespans, and the\u00a0expensive brain hypothesis<\/em>, which holds that increases in lifespan are caused by prolonged developmental time of, and increased parental investment in, large-brained offspring.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n We estimated life expectancy from detailed zoo records for 133 818 individuals across 244 parrot species. Using a principled Bayesian approach that addresses data uncertainty and imputation of missing values, we found a consistent correlation between relative brain size and life expectancy in parrots. This correlation was best explained by a direct effect of relative brain size. Notably, we found no effects of developmental time, clutch size or age at first reproduction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our results suggest that selection for enhanced cognitive abilities in parrots has in turn promoted longer lifespans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simeon Q Smeele<\/a> <\/sup>1<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>2<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>3<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>4<\/sup><\/a>, Dalia A Conde<\/a> <\/sup>4<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>5<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>6<\/sup><\/a>, Annette Baudisch<\/a> <\/sup>4<\/sup><\/a>, Simon Bruslund<\/a> <\/sup>7<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>8<\/sup><\/a>, Andrew Iwaniuk<\/a> <\/sup>9<\/sup><\/a>, Johanna Staerk<\/a> <\/sup>4<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>5<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>6<\/sup><\/a>, Timothy F Wright<\/a> <\/sup>10<\/sup><\/a>, Anna M Young<\/a> <\/sup>11<\/sup><\/a>, Mary Brooke McElreath<\/a> <\/sup>1<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>2<\/sup><\/a>, Lucy Aplin<\/a> <\/sup>1<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>12<\/sup><\/a> <\/sup>13<\/sup><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Proc Biol Sci.<\/em> 2022 Mar 30;289(1971): 20212397.doi: 10.1098\/rspb.2021.2397. Epub 2022 Mar 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1<\/sup>Cognitive and Cultural Ecology Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Radolfzell, Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2<\/sup>Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3<\/sup>Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4<\/sup>Interdisciplinary Centre on Population Dynamics, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5<\/sup>Department of Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6<\/sup>Species360 Conservation Science Alliance, Bloomington, IN, USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7<\/sup>Vogelpark Marlow gGmbH, Marlow, Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 8<\/sup>Parrot Taxon Advisory Group, European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 9<\/sup>Department of Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 10<\/sup>Biology Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 11<\/sup>The Living Desert Zoo and GardensPalm Desert, Palm Desert, CA, USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 12<\/sup>Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 13<\/sup>Division of Ecology and Evolution, Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Free article<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Previous studies have demonstrated a correlation between longevity and brain size in a variety of taxa. Little research has been devoted to understanding this link in parrots; yet parrots are well-known for both their exceptionally long lives and cognitive complexity. We employed a large-scale comparative analysis that investigated the influence of brain size and life-history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,2339,2338,55],"class_list":["post-3019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abstracts","tag-abstracts-2","tag-brain-size","tag-parrots","tag-research"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":3,"name":"Abstracts","slug":"abstracts","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":237,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":237,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Abstracts","category_nicename":"abstracts","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"Previous studies have demonstrated a correlation between longevity and brain size in a variety of taxa. Little research has been devoted to understanding this link in parrots; yet parrots are well-known for both their exceptionally long lives and cognitive complexity. We employed a large-scale comparative analysis that investigated the influence of brain size and life-history variables on longevity in parrots...","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"3":{"name":"Abstracts","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=3"}},"tags_names":{"54":{"name":"abstracts","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=abstracts-2"},"2339":{"name":"brain size","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=brain-size"},"2338":{"name":"parrots","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=parrots"},"55":{"name":"research","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=research"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3021,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019\/revisions\/3021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}