What makes a fish clever? Testing the cognitive abilities of wild Trinidadian guppies Supervisors: Dr. Catarina Vila Pouca, Hannah de Waele, Asst. Prof. Alexander Kotrschal Begin date: flexible Duration: 5-6 months (flexible) Location: Wageningen University, The Netherlands To apply: Send CV and short motivation text to Catarina Vila Pouca (catarina.vilapouca@wur.nl) Brief project description: Individuals generally face a trade-off between predation avoidance and activities such as foraging or courtship. To optimize this balance, animals need to acquire information about the predation risk and act correctly based on this information. Since information gathering and decision making require cognitive processing, ‘better’ cognitive abilities should decrease their chance of predation. Our ongoing project aims to determine the impact of predation pressure on the evolution of cognition by comparing cognitive performance of wild guppies from high and low predation populations. We have tested wild guppies in two learning tasks and collected video recordings of the learning trials. This project would thus involve scoring behaviour from videos using the program BORIS to quantify learning performance metrics. There is scope for testing your own research questions if you are interested in a particular topic within this project. These findings will provide the first comprehensive test of predation-driven evolution of cognitive traits in the wild. We are looking for a highly motivated, independent student in behavioural ecology/cognition to join us in this project. This project offers the opportunity to gain experience in scientific software (e.g. BORIS, ImageJ), and to further develop research skills in experimental design, data collection, data analysis (R), and writing of a scientific paper. Used skills: Behavioural scoring; BORIS; ImageJ; data management; R; statistical analysis; question formulation; hypothesis testing. Requirements: Motivation to analyse a large number of videos. Interest in evolutionary and behavioural ecology. Candidates must be able to demonstrate enthusiasm for biological research and ability to engage in independent work. The working language will be English. Candidates should be motivated to apply for Erasmus+ or additional funding to cover mobility expenses. Project expenses are covered by our lab. Recommended reading: Vila Pouca et al. 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.08481 Dr. Catarina Vila Pouca Behavioural Ecology Group Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands Kotrschal et al. 2013 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.058 Aplin & Morand-Ferron 2017 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.2872