Dr. Lefebvre says that the IQ index meticulously avoids the factor that gets feathers ruffled with human IQ tests: cultural bias. The index statistically takes into account differences in the number of observations for commonly seen birds, such as crows, and rare isolated sightings. Even then, he says, there's a clear hierarchy for bird innovation ability. The crow and falcon families are at the top of the class, followed by hawks, woodpeckers and herons.
In 2002, the feeding innovation index methodology gained a higher scientific perch when it was successfully extended to primates by British researchers Dr. Simon Reader and Dr. Kevin Laland at Cambridge University.
The result, says Dr. Lefebvre, demonstrates links between the evolution of innovation-related brain structures in birds and primates. In both groups, greater feeding innovation, tool use and speed of learning are related to larger forebrains the neocortex in primates and other mammals and the mesopallium-nidopallium complex in birds.
"So it all seems to provide a picture of convergent evolution. Similar solutions to brain-cognition organization seem to have evolved in the two groups, whose ancestors diverged more than 300 million years ago," he says.
And, says Dr. Lefebvre, the latest research by his former postdoctoral student Dr. Daniel Sol shows that those birds with greater "behavioural flexibility" do indeed rise to the top when it's a difference between life and death. Analysis of dozens of attempts to introduce bird species around the world reveals that species which were more innovative on their home turf were much more successful in taking up roo
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Contact: Dr. Louis Lefebvre
Louis.lefebvre@mcgill.ca
514- 398-6457
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
21-Feb-2005