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Abstract
The hippocampus plays an important role in spatial memory and spatial cognition in
birds and mammals. Natural selection, sexual selection and artificial selection have
resulted in an increase in the size of the hippocampus in a remarkably diverse group
of animals that rely on spatial abilities to solve ecologically important problems.
Food-storing birds remember the locations of large numbers of scattered caches. Polygynous
male voles traverse large home ranges in search of mates. Kangaroo rats both cache
food and exhibit a sex difference in home range size. In all of these species, an
increase in the size of the hippocampus is associated with superior spatial ability.
Artificial selection for homing ability has produced a comparable increase in the
size of the hippocampus in homing pigeons, compared with other strains of domestic
pigeon. Despite differences among these animals in their histories of selection and
the genetic backgrounds on which selection has acted, there is a common relationship
between relative hippocampal size and spatial ability.