Cooperation often draws on cognition (i.e. learning and memory) in order to
track cooperative partners and their contributions, resolve conflict between partners,
improve coordination between partners, and enhance strategic-decision making.
Learning and memory are also vital to resolve what is frequently a spatial and temporal
mismatch between performing a cooperative act and receiving any kind of benefit in
return. In this thesis, I compared cognitive abilities between three cooperative and
group-living cichlid fishes from the Lamprologini tribe of Lake Tanganyika
Neolamprologus pulcher, Neolamprologus multifasciatus, and Julidochromis ornatus
with three of their close relatives that are not cooperative and never form groups
Telmatochromis temporalis, Altolamprologus compressiceps, and Neolamprologus
tretocephalus. This thesis aims to address whether the evolution of cooperation
coincided with the evolution of sophisticated cognition in these fishes. In Chapter 2, I
present evidence that both cooperative and non-cooperative cichlids are able to
recognize familiar individuals and have similar numerical abilities. In Chapter 3, I
show that performance when learning to navigate a maze, arguably a more general
cognitive ability, was equivalent across cooperative and non-cooperative species, with
comparable scores in terms of time to maze completion, number of mistakes and
inhibitory control. In Chapter 4, I report on the results of a literature review where I
quantified the growing interest in the field of fish cognition research, outline the
current practices and pitfalls (heavy use of captive bred individuals and a reliance on
lab-based research) and suggest how to bring more ecological relevance to the field. Taken together, the results of my thesis improve our understanding of how social
factors like group-living and cooperation modulate cognitive abilities, and detail the
current trajectory of the field of fish cognition. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/25919 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Salena, Matthew |
| Contributors | Balshine, Sigal, Psychology |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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