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Body mass variation is negatively associated with brain size: Evidence for the fat‐brain trade‐off in anurans
Author(s) -
Huang Yan,
Mai Chun Lan,
Liao Wen Bo,
Kotrschal Alexander
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/evo.13991
Subject(s) - biology , foraging , arboreal locomotion , brain size , trade off , cognition , economic shortage , predation , variation (astronomy) , ecology , energy expenditure , evolutionary biology , zoology , neuroscience , endocrinology , medicine , physics , linguistics , philosophy , government (linguistics) , habitat , astrophysics , magnetic resonance imaging , radiology
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 (CV bodymass ; 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 CV bodymass . 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.