DOI: 10.5061/dryad.7d7wm382b
title: Heritability of cognitive performance in wild Western Australian magpies

description: Individual differences in cognitive performance can have genetic, social
 and environmental components. Most research on the heritability of
 cognitive traits comes from humans or captive non-human animals, whilst
 less attention has been given to wild populations. Western Australian
 magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen dorsalis, hereafter magpies) show phenotypic
 variation in cognitive performance, which affects reproductive success.
 Despite high levels of individual repeatability, we do not know whether
 cognitive performance is heritable in this species. Here, we quantify
 broad-sense heritability of associative learning ability in a wild
 population of Western Australian magpies. Specifically, we explore whether
 offspring associative learning performance is predicted by maternal
 associative learning performance, or by the social environment (group
 size) when tested at three time points during the first year of life. We
 found no significant relationship between maternal and offspring
 associative learning performance, with an estimated broad-sense
 heritability of just -0.004 ± 0.024 (CI: -0.050/0.044). However,
 complementing previous findings, we find that at 300 days post-fledging,
 individuals raised in larger groups passed the test in fewer trials
 compared to individuals from small groups. Our results highlight the
 pivotal influence of the social environment on cognitive development.
description: # Heritability of cognitive performance in wild Western Australian magpies
 Dataset contains the R
 script, data files (.csv) for all analyses and the supplementary material.
 ## Description of the data and file structure Each data file is labelled
 according to the testing period (100 for 100 days post-fledging, 200 for
 200 days post-fledging etc). Data files (.csv) labelled 100 full, 200 full
 and 300 full contain the full data set and these were used for initial
 exploratory analyses (presented in the supplementary material). Data files
 (.csv) labelled 100, 200 and 300 contain the data subset for which
 maternal scores were available and these were used for GLMMs in the main
 text. Data files (.csv) labelled Regression100, Regression200 and
 Regression300 were used for broad-sense heritability estimates. This
 dataset contains a mid-offspring value per female (obtained by averaging
 offspring scores where multiple scores were obtained from the same
 mother). Abbreviations in data files include: * id=individual identity *
 grp=group identity * year=year tested (1 = 2020 and 2 = 2021) * mass=body
 mass (grams) * fe=foraging efficiency (amount of biomass caught in grams
 per minute foraging) * grp size=group size at time of testing *
 no.fl=number of fledglings in the group (&lt;1 year old) * shade=shade of
 rewarded well * score=associative learning score * neo=neophobia (time
 taken (seconds) to approach test apparatus from 1m away) * order=order
 tested in group * temp=average ambient temperature at time of testing (°C)
 * mother=name of mother * mother score=mothers associative learning score
 ## Code/Software Custom R code used for analysis can be accessed here and
 is labelled "Heritability".