Heat waves enhance learning in threespined stickleback |
Eric D. Arredondo, Anna Swierkosz, Laura R. Stein. University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, United States |
� The ability to find food is crucial for fitness, with animals using associative learning to locate food. Understanding how environmental stressors affect cognitive abilities and foraging can reveal coping mechanisms in a changing world. Here, we examine how parental and personal heat stress affects offspring cognitive function in a learning assay. Stickleback offspring of heat-exposed or control fathers endured heat waves or normal temperatures for five days and were trained to find food in colored chambers. Offspring of heat-exposed fathers were slower to emerge regardless of personal experience. Offspring with personal heat exposure learned the food reward-color association, unlike unexposed offspring. These findings highlight environmental stressors' impact on risk-taking and learning, suggesting parental experience affects baseline risk-taking, while personal experience influences cognitive abilities. |