Animals benefit from numerical competence (foraging, navigating, hunting, predation avoidance, social interactions, & reproductive activities); internal number representations determine how they perceive stimulus magnitude

The Adaptive Value of Numerical Competence. Andreas Nieder. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, March 30 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2020.02.009

Highlights
*  Numerical competence, the ability to estimate and process the number of objects and events, is of adaptive value.
*  It enhances an animal’s ability to survive by exploiting food sources, hunting prey, avoiding predation, navigating, and persisting in social interactions. It also plays a major role in successful reproduction, from monopolizing receptive mates to increasing the chances of fertilizing an egg and promoting the survival chances of offspring.
*  In these ecologically relevant scenarios, animals exhibit a specific way of internally representing numbers that follows the Weber-Fechner law.
*  A framework is provided for more dedicated and quantitative analyses of the adaptive value of numerical competence.

Abstract: Evolution selects for traits that are of adaptive value and increase the fitness of an individual or population. Numerical competence, the ability to estimate and process the number of objects and events, is a cognitive capacity that also influences an individual’s survival and reproduction success. Numerical assessments are ubiquitous in a broad range of ecological contexts. Animals benefit from numerical competence during foraging, navigating, hunting, predation avoidance, social interactions, and reproductive activities. The internal number representations determine how animals perceive stimulus magnitude, which, in turn, constrains an animal’s spontaneous decisions. These findings are placed in a framework to provide for a more quantitative analysis of the adaptive value and selection pressures of numerical competence.

Keywords: quantitynumberWeber-Fechner lawproportional processingultimate causesanimal cognition