Data for Long-term memory of experienced jays facilitates problem-solving by naïve group members in the wild

Long-term memory affects animal fitness, especially in social species where the memory of group members facilitates learning of novel foraging skills. Long-term memory and social learning also provide the framework for cultural behavior, a trait found in humans but very few other animal species. In birds, little is known about the duration of long-term memories for complex foraging skills, or the impact of long-term memory on group members. We tested whether wild jays remembered a complex foraging task more than 3 years after their initial experience and quantified the effect of this memory on naïve jay behavior. Knowledgeable jays remembered how to solve the task and their behavior had significant positive effects on interactions by naïve group members at the task. This indicates that evolution in this system favored long-term memory retention for novel foraging tasks and this memory functions, in part, to facilitate foraging of naïve group members with novel problems, potentially allowing novel foraging skills to persist in social groups across generations.