Stressful conditions experienced during early development can have deleterious effects on offspring morphology, physiology and behaviour. However, few studies have examined how developmental stress influences an individual’s cognitive phenotype. Using a viviparous lizard, we show that the availability of food resources to a mother during gestation influences a key component of her offspring’s cognitive phenotype: their decision-making. Offspring from females who experienced low resource availability during gestation did better in an anti-predatory task that relied on spatial associations to guide their decisions, whereas offspring from females who experienced high resource availability during gestation did better in a foraging task that relied on colour associations to inform their decisions. This shows that the prenatal environment can influence decision-making in animals, a cognitive trait with functional implications later in life.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	cognition, developmental stress, information bias, ontogeny, diet, reptiles
Research Division:	Biological Sciences
Research Group:	Ecology
Research Field:	Behavioural ecology
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences
UTAS Author:	Munch, KL (Ms Kirke Munch)
UTAS Author:	Noble, DWA (Dr Dan Noble)
UTAS Author:	Botterill-James, T (Dr Thomas Botterill-James)
UTAS Author:	Koolhof, IS (Mr Iain Koolhof)
UTAS Author:	Halliwell, B (Dr Benjamin Halliwell)
UTAS Author:	Wapstra, E (Professor Erik Wapstra)
UTAS Author:	While, GM (Associate Professor Geoff While)
ID Code:	125286
Year Published:	2018
Funding Support:	Australian Research Council (DP150102900)
Web of Science® Times Cited:	16
Deposited By:	Zoology
Deposited On:	2018-04-11
Last Modified:	2019-03-04
Downloads:	0