Body mass variation is negatively associated with brain size: Evidence for the fat-brain trade-off in anurans

Species can evolve diverse strategies to survive periods of uncertainty. Animals may either invest in energy storage, allowing them to decrease foraging costs, such as locomotion or risk of predation, or they may invest in better cognitive abilities helping them to flexibly adapt their behavior to m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evolution 2020-07, Vol.74 (7), p.1551-1557
Main Authors: Huang, Yan, Mai, Chun Lan, Liao, Wen Bo, Kotrschal, Alexander
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adiposity - genetics
Animal cognition
Animals
Anura - anatomy & histology
Biological Evolution
Body mass
Body Weight - genetics
Brain
Brain - anatomy & histology
Brain size
BRIEF COMMUNICATION
Coefficient of variation
Cognition
Cognitive ability
Energy storage
fat storage
Locomotion
Male
Organ Size - genetics
Physiology
Predation
Primates
trade‐off
Vertebrates
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Summary:Species can evolve diverse strategies to survive periods of uncertainty. Animals may either invest in energy storage, allowing them to decrease foraging costs, such as locomotion or risk of predation, or they may invest in better cognitive abilities helping them to flexibly adapt their behavior to meet novel challenges. Here, we test this idea of a fat-brain trade-off in 38 species of Chinese anurans by relating the coefficient of variation of body mass (CVbodymass; as an indicator of how much animals invest into storage over the season) to brain anatomical features. After correcting for shared ancestry and body mass, we found a negative relationship between relative brain size and CVbodymass. This indicates that anurans seem to trade-off physiological and cognitive buffering during energy shortages. As similar patterns have been reported in arboreal mammals and primates our findings suggest that the fat-brain trade-off, where animals either invest into physiological or cognitive strategies to survive harsh conditions, may be a general pattern across vertebrates.
ISSN:0014-3820
1558-5646
DOI:10.1111/evo.13991