Project overview:
Cognitive traits drive the way an animal interacts with its environment, and are associated with fitness. To understand how natural selection shapes cognition, we must understand the causes and consequences of individual variation in cognitive traits. Epigenetic processes, such as DNA methylation and histone modifications, are known to be involved in cognition and nervous system function and may underlie individual variation in cognition. However, research connecting these epigenetic mechanisms to the evolution of cognitive traits is currently lacking.
I assess individual variation in cognitive performance in the great tit and study the ecological and evolutionary consequences of epigenetic variation. I will perform experiments to assess the heritability, fitness consequences and environmental causes of cognitive variation, and study whether epigenetic mechanisms underlie this variation. Because much more is known about neural system and function in relation to behaviour in laboratory rodents, I will assess the links between epigenetic marks and cognitive traits in mice and rats to validate the findings in the great tit.