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The history of scatter hoarding studies.

Brodin, Anders LU (2010) In Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 365(1542). p.869-881
Abstract
In this review, I will present an overview of the development of the field of scatter hoarding studies. Scatter hoarding is a conspicuous behaviour and it has been observed by humans for a long time. Apart from an exceptional experimental study already published in 1720, it started with observational field studies of scatter hoarding birds in the 1940s. Driven by a general interest in birds, several ornithologists made large-scale studies of hoarding behaviour in species such as nutcrackers and boreal titmice. Scatter hoarding birds seem to remember caching locations accurately, and it was shown in the 1960s that successful retrieval is dependent on a specific part of the brain, the hippocampus. The study of scatter hoarding, spatial... (More)
In this review, I will present an overview of the development of the field of scatter hoarding studies. Scatter hoarding is a conspicuous behaviour and it has been observed by humans for a long time. Apart from an exceptional experimental study already published in 1720, it started with observational field studies of scatter hoarding birds in the 1940s. Driven by a general interest in birds, several ornithologists made large-scale studies of hoarding behaviour in species such as nutcrackers and boreal titmice. Scatter hoarding birds seem to remember caching locations accurately, and it was shown in the 1960s that successful retrieval is dependent on a specific part of the brain, the hippocampus. The study of scatter hoarding, spatial memory and the hippocampus has since then developed into a study system for evolutionary studies of spatial memory. In 1978, a game theoretical paper started the era of modern studies by establishing that a recovery advantage is necessary for individual hoarders for the evolution of a hoarding strategy. The same year, a combined theoretical and empirical study on scatter hoarding squirrels investigated how caches should be spaced out in order to minimize cache loss, a phenomenon sometimes called optimal cache density theory. Since then, the scatter hoarding paradigm has branched into a number of different fields: (i) theoretical and empirical studies of the evolution of hoarding, (ii) field studies with modern sampling methods, (iii) studies of the precise nature of the caching memory, (iv) a variety of studies of caching memory and its relationship to the hippocampus. Scatter hoarding has also been the subject of studies of (v) coevolution between scatter hoarding animals and the plants that are dispersed by these. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
volume
365
issue
1542
pages
869 - 881
publisher
Royal Society Publishing
external identifiers
  • wos:000274514000002
  • scopus:77950261495
ISSN
1471-2970
DOI
10.1098/rstb.2009.0217
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
dc35c10d-d18e-483e-bf83-c9abf87a7ceb (old id 1552636)
alternative location
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20156813?dopt=Abstract
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 14:13:02
date last changed
2022-04-22 02:01:37
@article{dc35c10d-d18e-483e-bf83-c9abf87a7ceb,
  abstract     = {{In this review, I will present an overview of the development of the field of scatter hoarding studies. Scatter hoarding is a conspicuous behaviour and it has been observed by humans for a long time. Apart from an exceptional experimental study already published in 1720, it started with observational field studies of scatter hoarding birds in the 1940s. Driven by a general interest in birds, several ornithologists made large-scale studies of hoarding behaviour in species such as nutcrackers and boreal titmice. Scatter hoarding birds seem to remember caching locations accurately, and it was shown in the 1960s that successful retrieval is dependent on a specific part of the brain, the hippocampus. The study of scatter hoarding, spatial memory and the hippocampus has since then developed into a study system for evolutionary studies of spatial memory. In 1978, a game theoretical paper started the era of modern studies by establishing that a recovery advantage is necessary for individual hoarders for the evolution of a hoarding strategy. The same year, a combined theoretical and empirical study on scatter hoarding squirrels investigated how caches should be spaced out in order to minimize cache loss, a phenomenon sometimes called optimal cache density theory. Since then, the scatter hoarding paradigm has branched into a number of different fields: (i) theoretical and empirical studies of the evolution of hoarding, (ii) field studies with modern sampling methods, (iii) studies of the precise nature of the caching memory, (iv) a variety of studies of caching memory and its relationship to the hippocampus. Scatter hoarding has also been the subject of studies of (v) coevolution between scatter hoarding animals and the plants that are dispersed by these.}},
  author       = {{Brodin, Anders}},
  issn         = {{1471-2970}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1542}},
  pages        = {{869--881}},
  publisher    = {{Royal Society Publishing}},
  series       = {{Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences}},
  title        = {{The history of scatter hoarding studies.}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0217}},
  doi          = {{10.1098/rstb.2009.0217}},
  volume       = {{365}},
  year         = {{2010}},
}