Damas-Moreira Isabel, Szabo Birgit, Drosopoulos Georgios, Stober Carolin, Lisičić Duje, Caspers Barbara A
Department of Behavioural Ecology, Bielefeld University, 33615, Germany.
Division of Behavioural Ecology, University of Bern, 3032, Switzerland.
Curr Zool. 2024 Mar 29;70(3):361-370. doi: 10.1093/cz/zoae010. eCollection 2024 Jun.
Urbanization occurs at a global scale, imposing dramatic and abrupt environmental changes that lead to biodiversity loss. Yet, some animal species can handle these changes, and thrive in such artificial environments. One possible explanation is that urban individuals are equipped with better cognitive abilities, but most studies have focused on birds and mammals and yielded varied results. Reptiles have received much less attention, despite some lizard species being common city dwellers. The Italian wall lizard, , and the common wall lizard, , are two successful lizards in anthropogenic habitats that thrive in urban locations. To test for differences in a cognitive skill between urban and semi-natural environments, we investigated inhibitory control through a detour task in syntopic populations of the two species, across 249 lizards that were tested in partially artificial field settings. Sophisticated inhibitory control is considered essential for higher degrees of cognitive flexibility and other higher-level cognitive abilities. In this task, we confronted lizards with a transparent barrier, separating them from a desired shelter area that they could only reach by controlling their impulse to go straight and instead detour the barrier. We found no differences between lizards in urban and semi-natural environments, nor between species, but females overall performed better than males. Moreover, 48% of the lizards in our study did not perform a correct trial in any of the 5 trials, hinting at the difficulty of the task for these species. This study is among the first to address lizard cognition, through their inhibitory control, as a potential explanation for success in cities and highlights one should be careful with assuming that urban animals generally have enhanced cognitive performance, as it might be taxa, task, or condition dependent.
城市化在全球范围内发生，带来了剧烈且突然的环境变化，导致生物多样性丧失。然而，一些动物物种能够应对这些变化，并在这种人工环境中繁衍生息。一种可能的解释是城市中的个体具备更好的认知能力，但大多数研究都集中在鸟类和哺乳动物上，结果各不相同。尽管一些蜥蜴物种是常见的城市居民，但爬行动物受到的关注要少得多。意大利壁蜥和普通壁蜥是在人为栖息地中成功生存的两种蜥蜴，它们在城市环境中茁壮成长。为了测试城市和半自然环境中认知技能的差异，我们通过绕道任务，对这两个物种的同域种群中的249只蜥蜴进行了抑制控制研究，这些蜥蜴是在部分人工的野外环境中进行测试的。复杂的抑制控制被认为是更高程度的认知灵活性和其他高级认知能力的关键。在这项任务中，我们给蜥蜴设置了一个透明屏障，将它们与一个理想的避难区域隔开，它们只有通过控制直接前进的冲动，转而绕过屏障才能到达该区域。我们发现城市和半自然环境中的蜥蜴之间没有差异，物种之间也没有差异，但总体而言雌性比雄性表现更好。此外，我们研究中的48%的蜥蜴在5次试验中的任何一次都没有做出正确的尝试，这表明这项任务对这些物种来说具有难度。这项研究是首批通过蜥蜴的抑制控制来探讨蜥蜴认知的研究之一，将其作为在城市中成功生存的潜在解释，并强调在假设城市动物普遍具有增强的认知表现时应谨慎，因为这可能取决于分类群、任务或条件。
