Alan C. Kamil - US grants

The long term objective of the proposed research is concerned with the structure and organization of spatial memory. Major emphasis is placed on developing more detailed understanding of how spatial information is encoded and retained, and how remembered information is retrieved and used to guide behavior. This objective will be approached through the detailed study of Clark's nutcrackers. These birds harvest and store thousands of pine seeds that will be eaten months later. Detailed laboratory studies have demonstrated that spatial memory is used to find these seeds. The memory abilities of these birds will be studied with several different experimental procedures, including radial-maze-analogs, operant matching-to-sample and list learning. In addition, the abilities of some closely related species will also be studied in order to begin to evaluate the relation between memory and evolution. By studying memory in this species, and some closely related species, it is expected that considerable general information about spatial memory will result.

9255225 Royce Ballinger The major goal of the Nebraska EPSCoR Committee is to design a practical, farsighted plan for science and engineering infrastructure development and technology transfer as part of its expanded responsibilities as an official science advisory board to the Governor of Nebraska. A key element of the plan is to sponsor specific research enhancement programs in Behavioral Biology, Metallobiochemistry, and Materials Research on Nanostructured and Complex Systems. Researchers from the University of Nebraska Lincoln, the University of Nebraska Omaha, and Creighton University will participate in the research programs. The overall program objective is to bring for the first time a logical and well ordered approach for: 1) evaluating the science and engineering strengths and needs of the state; 2) providing a forum for discussion between universities, the state government and the private sector in setting both short and long term goals, priorities and achievement standards for research; 3) establishing mechanisms for evaluating the effectiveness of the sponsored programs in achieving enhanced competitiveness for Nebraska's scientists and engineers and in fostering long range economic development for the state, and 4) promoting science and engineering in the schools and communities of Nebraska. ***

9421807 Kamil A major challenge confronting biology today is to understand the evolution and adaptive significance of cognitive abilities. In order to meet this challenge, biologists have begun to investigate how cognitive abilities are actually used by animals in confronting the problems they face in nature. This information, in turn, leads to hypotheses about how different species may possess differing suites of cognitive abilities. In the proposed research, Drs. Kamil and Balda will use a comparative approach, studying closely related species whose natural histories are different. Because the natural histories differ, the species confront somewhat different challenges in nature and therefore, they hypothesize, possess differing cognitive abilities. In one set of experiments, they will investigate difference in spatial memory that are associated with species differences in dependence on stored food whose locations are remembered by food-caching animals. In another set of experiments, they will test for differences in cognitive ability among species who differ in sociality. These two sets of experiments will further our understanding of the evolution of cognition and of the role of cognitive abilities in the natural world.

Animal Behavior Program

Non-technical Abstract



Title: Predator cognition and prey evolution: The virtual ecology approach

PI: Bond, Alan

Proposal #: 9974669


The evolution of color patterns in animals has been studied for over a century, but many basic questions are still poorly understood. Why do camouflaged species often occur in multiple, distinctive forms? Why are distasteful animals usually brightly colored? There is little direct evidence bearing on these issues, because it is difficult to conduct evolutionary experiments in the laboratory. The proposed research will explore the evolution of color patterns in prey species using blue jays trained to search computer displays for the presence of digital "moths." The moths exist in an artificial population maintained in computer memory, a "virtual ecology," with a genetic system derived from the genetics of real moths. They breed and evolve through successive generations based on whether jays detect them when they are displayed on screen. Changes in their color patterns over time mimic many of the evolved features of color patterns in real insects.

Predator-prey systems are important both biologically and practically. The proposed research will advance understanding of the complex dynamics involved in predator-prey interactions over evolutionary time. It will also test the validity of virtual ecology for studying evolutionary dynamics, potentially adding a powerful new technique to the scientific study of organic evolution.

Way-finding (or spatial navigation) is a vitally important behavior. Any disruption of way-finding mechanisms causes serious problems for many people. Although much is known about the mechanisms by which people and animals navigate through space, fundamental questions remain. Many of these questions concern how landmarks are used during way finding. In the research proposed here, a new approach emphasizing the use of absolute and relative directional information will be pursued with a particularly appropriate animal model, taking advantage of a natural system. This natural system involves an unusual degree of extremely precise spatial navigation using local landmarks. This research has the potential to yield important new information about the integration of different sources of spatial information that will be relevant to developing a better understanding of way finding at both the neural and behavioral levels. How animals find their way, how way finding is encoded, how it is represented and how it is remembered are puzzles still not thoroughly understood despite remarkable progress in the last 15 years. The proposed research is grounded in knowledge of the ecology and natural history of the subject species, Nucifraga columbiana, (Clark's nutcrackers). Individual nutcrackers face the problem in nature of relocating the many thousands of seeds they cache in the ground during the fall in many thousands of locations. The nutcrackers use this information to later return to these caches as their primary food source during winter and spring. The researchers intend to discover how nutcrackers integrate information from multiple landmarks, how such information is integrated with compass information, and how nutcrackers plan a route of visitation to a series of caches.

Cedar Point Biological Station provides research opportunities and advanced course work in field biology, with special emphasis on prairie ecology, insect-plant interactions, animal behavior and parasitology. Cedar Point is located in the North Platte River valley, in a location that gives its faculty and students excellent access to a variety of ecosystems and habitats including the Nebraska Sand Hills. Cedar Point was founded in 1975 and has established a strong educational program and an outstanding record of research productivity. Cedar Point Biological Station has been awarded funds to construct a new Resource Building, which will include space for a new library, computer lab, classroom and seminar room. Provision of this space will then allow better access to the biological collections of the station. It will also allow for improvement and expansion of the dining hall and teaching facilities in existing buildings. The resources provided by this award will allow for a substantial increase in the capacity of Cedar Point Biological Station to provide opportunities for research and education in field biology to faculty, graduate students and undergraduates for many years.

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Organisms selectively filter sensory input, increasing their ability to detect some stimuli at the cost of decreasing their ability to detect others. This process, often referred to as "selective attention", is crucial to normal functioning in many contexts, and deficits in selective attention play a significant role in a number of pathological conditions, including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, unilateral visual neglect, and Alzheimer's disease. The research proposed here takes advantage of a powerful model system that uses operant procedures to test visual predators searching for naturalistic, hard-to-find prey under well-controlled conditions. This paradigm will be used to study the role of selective attention in determining responses to complex visual stimuli. This is of particular concern because the simpler geometrical stimuli do not place a sufficient demand on information processing capacity to enable selective attention effects. [unreadable] [unreadable] Emphasis will be placed on developing a more complete understanding of the regulatory dynamics of attentional processes and the relationship between different modes of eliciting attention. Key questions will include: What factors determine the stimuli to which an organism attends at any given moment? What are the cues that elicit the occurrence of an attentional state? Is attention to a particular stimulus configuration a single, unified phenomenon that is potentially elicited by a number of different cues, or can attention be primed by cues that engage different cognitive mechanisms? By addressing such issues in a naturalistic context with suitably complex stimuli, the proposed approach has unique potential for developing important insights into the nature and mechanisms of selective attention, making a significant contribution to neglected aspects of attention and visual cognition. [unreadable] [unreadable]

Virtual Ecology: Experimental Tests of Evolution in Predator-Prey Systems

Alan B. Bond

Some of the most profound issues in biological evolution concern the selective effects of interactions between organisms, particularly the influence of predators on the color patterning of their prey. The proposed research will study the effects of predation using a 'virtual ecology', in which predators hunt moth-like virtual prey whose appearance is controlled by a computer-based genetic algorithm. When the prey are detected on the computer screen, they are considered to have been eaten. Only surviving prey can breed to produce the next generation, so the actions of the predator, over time, influence the appearance of the virtual prey dynamically, causing it to evolve into new forms. This procedure will be used to test hypotheses that relate prey appearance to patterns of predation. For example, most palatable prey are also cryptically colored, difficult to detect, and highly variable in appearance. In contrast, prey that are poisonous or distasteful tend to be conspicuously colored and to vary little in appearance. By establishing populations of virtual moths that vary in coloration and palatability, several hypotheses that have been proposed to account for differences in appearance and variability of the prey will be rigorously tested. The proposed research will advance our understanding of the complex dynamics involved in predator-prey interactions over evolutionary time. It will also establish the validity of virtual ecology for studying complex evolutionary dynamics, potentially adding powerful new techniques to the scientific study of ecological relationships among organisms.


--------------------------------------------------------
Michael D. Greenfield
Program Director, Animal Behavior
Div. Integrative Biology & Neuroscience
National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Blvd., Rm 685
Arlington, VA 22230 U.S.A.
703-292-8421

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research seeks to develop an operant test for implicit episodic memory, which is memory for unique, individually experienced events. A primary criterion of episodic memory is the binding together of information about What happened, Where it happened, and When it occurred (WWW memory) into an integrated memory trace. Experimental studies of episodic memory commonly use designs that depend on verbal reports of conscious memories in human subjects, and as a result, episodic memory is often considered an integral function of human consciousness. It is possible, however, that the formation of at least some episodic memories requires neither conscious recall nor verbal ability, that animals, pre-verbal children, or cognitively compromised adults may be able to make use of implicit memories of specific past occurrences that fit the primary diagnostic features of episodic memory. This possibility has important theoretical and practical implications. If subjects with cognitive deficits retain some unconscious memories of past events, this could modify our view of their cognitive capabilities of these populations and potentially lead to new forms of assessment in normal and at-risk populations. A determined search for criteria that do not depend upon verbal report is needed. One potentially valuable approach to this problem would be to develop such tests with nonhuman animal models. We propose to explore a range of novel experimental procedures employing operant techniques with California scrub jays, which have demonstrated impressive 'episodic-like'memory in a naturalistic context. The proposed experiments will test for integrated event memory, using designs that are more amenable to precise experimental control. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: If any of these studies are successful in demonstrating episodic memory in scrub jays, the methodology can be readily applied to human subjects, providing significant benefits for the diagnosis and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as autism and schizophrenia. Development of a useable animal model of episodic memory will also permit further investigations of the underlying neurobiology, using pharmacological or neuroanatomical techniques that cannot be employed in human studies.