Problem-solving skills are linked to parental care and offspring survival in wild house sparrows

Individuals within a population often exhibit consistent differences in important behavioral traits such as parental care. One interesting, yet largely unexplored explanation for the existence of these consistent differences among parents is the idea that cognitive differences between individuals could lead to between-individual variation in parenting behavior. I used a wild population of house sparrows (Passer domesticus) to test the nature of the relationship between aspects of cognitive ability (problem-solving performance and learning) and parental care behavior, both measured in the wild. Furthermore, because parental care is tightly linked to fitness, I also investigated the relationship between problem-solving performance and offspring survival. Parent sparrows were presented with a novel problem-solving task that required them to remove an obstacle to obtain food. While there was no relationship between the ability to complete the task and measures of parental care (nestling provisioning rate or likelihood of provisioning with large food items), parents that solved the task quickly had higher provisioning rates than slow solvers. Additionally, the ability of fathers to complete the problem-solving task was positively related to offspring survival. These results provide evidence that aspects of problem-solving performance are positively correlated with parenting behavior and fitness in the wild.