Survival of the Smartest? The Evolutionary Ecology of Cognition in Anolis Lizards

Cognitive processes such as learning, memory, and decision-making are integral to an organism’s fitness, allowing to integrate cues from its environment and adjust its behavior accordingly. Historically, cognitive abilities were thought to have evolved according to a Scala Naturae design—an idea that has since been disproven—which suggested that complex cognitive abilities were exclusive to “higher” taxa. This perspective has created significant phylogenetic gaps in our understanding of cognitive evolution. In this dissertation I aimed to address this issue by investigating the evolution of cognition in reptiles, focusing on the green (Anolis carolinensis) and the brown anole (Anolis sagrei). Specifically, I adopted an integrative approach to assess how locomotor challenges can shape the brains and behaviors of these reptiles. I started by clarifying a methodological oversight, experimentally assessing the relationship between exertion capacity and other locomotor performance traits, in A. carolinensis. The second chapter tested the Adaptive Flexibility Hypothesis, exploring the relationship between behavioral flexibility and the cognitive abilities in a native and an invasive species of anole. The final chapters quantified the connections between different types of exercise training, cognitive abilities, brain morphology and physiology. Overall, I found evidence that aerobic and anaerobic training differentially affected both brain structure and metabolism. Measuring cognitive abilities presented its own set of challenges, highlighting the need for better-suited protocols. Finally, I found consistent sex-specific differences in both phenotypes and in response to treatments, which underscores the importance of including both sexes in research. This dissertation highlights connections between physiological capacities and brain morphology and function, and points to new directions in the study of both locomotor performance and cognition