PERFORMANCE OF 4 SEED-CACHING CORVID SPECIES IN OPERANT TESTS OF NONSPATIAL AND SPATIAL MEMORY

The performance of 4 seed-caching corvid species was tested using 2 di fferent operant nonmatching tasks. These species differ in their depen dence on stored food, and differences in spatial memory tests have bee n correlated with better performance by the more cache-dependent speci es, Acquisition and retention of a color non-matching-to-sample task w as tested in Experiment 1. Acquisition of the color task was not corre lated with cache dependence, and no differences between species in per formance during memory testing were found. Acquisition and retention o f an operant spatial non-matching-to-sample task was tested in Experim ent 2. Species differences in the spatial task were found for acquisit ion and during retention testing. The influence of natural history on the evolution of memory is discussed.