Abstract: Increased encephalization, or larger brain volume relative to body mass, is a repeated theme in vertebrate evolution. Here we present an extensive sampling of relative brain sizes in fossil and extant taxa in the mammalian order Carnivora (cats, dogs, bears, weasels, and their relatives). By using Akaike Information Criterion model selection and endocranial volume and body mass data for 289 species (including 125 fossil taxa), we document clade-specific evolutionary transformations in encephalization allometries. These evolutionary transformations include multiple independent encephalization increases and decreases in addition to a remarkably static basal Carnivora allometry that characterizes much of the suborder Feliformia and some taxa in the suborder Caniformia across much of their evolutionary history, emphasizing that complex processes shaped the modern distribution of encephalization across Carnivora. This analysis also permits critical evaluation of the social brain hypothesis (SBH), which predicts a close association between sociality and increased encephalization. Previous analyses based on living species alone appeared to support the SBH with respect to Carnivora, but those results are entirely dependent on data from modern Canidae (dogs). Incorporation of fossil data further reveals that no association exists between sociality and encephalization across Carnivora and that support for sociality as a causal agent of encephalization increase disappears for this clade.

Abstract: Many primates, including humans, live in complex hierarchical societies where social context and status affect daily life. Nevertheless, primate learning studies typically test single animals in limited laboratory settings where the important effects of social interactions and relationships cannot be studied. To investigate the impact of sociality on associative learning, we compared the individual performances of group-tested rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) across various social contexts. We used a traditional discrimination paradigm that measures an animal's ability to form associations between cues and the obtaining of food in choice situations; but we adapted the task for group testing. After training a 55-member colony to separate on command into two subgroups, composed of either high- or low-status families, we exposed animals to two color discrimination problems, one with all monkeys present (combined condition), the other in their “dominant” and “subordinate” cohorts (split condition). Next, we manipulated learning history by testing animals on the same problems, but with the social contexts reversed. Monkeys from dominant families excelled in all conditions, but subordinates performed well in the split condition only, regardless of learning history. Subordinate animals had learned the associations, but expressed their knowledge only when segregated from higher-ranking animals. Because aggressive behavior was rare, performance deficits probably reflected voluntary inhibition. This experimental evidence of rank-related, social modulation of performance calls for greater consideration of social factors when assessing learning and may also have relevance for the evaluation of human scholastic achievement.

Abstract: Linear hierarchies, the classical pecking-order structures, are formed readily in both nature and the laboratory in a great range of species including humans. However, the probability of getting linear structures by chance alone is quite low. In this paper we investigate the two hypotheses that are proposed most often to explain linear hierarchies: they are predetermined by differences in the attributes of animals, or they are produced by the dynamics of social interaction, i.e., they are self-organizing. We evaluate these hypotheses using cichlid fish as model animals, and although differences in attributes play a significant part, we find that social interaction is necessary for high proportions of groups with linear hierarchies. Our results suggest that dominance hierarchy formation is a much richer and more complex phenomenon than previously thought, and we explore the implications of these results for evolutionary biology, the social sciences, and the use of animal models in understanding human social organization.

Abstract: Volumetric studies in a range of animals (London taxi-drivers, polygynous male voles, nest-parasitic female cowbirds, and a number of food-storing birds) have shown that the size of the hippocampus, a brain region essential to learning and memory, is correlated with tasks involving an extra demand for spatial learning and memory. In this paper, we report the quantitative advantage that food storers gain from such an enlargement. Coal tits () a food-storing species, performed better than great tits (), a nonstoring species, on a task that assessed memory persistence but not on a task that assessed memory resolution or on one that tested memory capacity. These results show that the advantage to the food-storing species associated with an enlarged hippocampus is one of memory persistence.