title: Survival is linked with reaction time and spatial memory in African striped mice.
abstract: Studying the association between fitness and cognition in free-living animals is a fundamental step in the elucidation of the evolution of cognition. We assessed whether survival until the onset of the breeding season was related to reaction time or spatial memory in the African striped mouse Rhabdomys pumilio, a rodent that has to survive summer drought before breeding. We tested a total of 90 individuals at the beginning of summer. Female survival was related to a faster response to predation stimuli. Male survival increased with greater spatial memory, possibly because it is important for males to remember the configuration of the environment during dispersal. This study revealed that individual variation in reaction time and spatial memory can be related to survival probability, which is important for understanding the selection pressures acting on basic cognitive traits.
authors.affiliation: IPHC-DEPE, Université de Strasbourg, 67087 Strasbourg, France School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 75005 Paris, France maille.aud@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Audrey
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-5830-3560
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Maille
authors.affiliation: IPHC-DEPE, Université de Strasbourg, 67087 Strasbourg, France School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
authors.forename: Carsten
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-2706-2960
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schradin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D051189:Murinae; D011930:Reaction Time; D012621:Seasons; D012919:Social Behavior; D065852:Spatial Memory
keywords: cognition; drought; fitness