Data from: Relative brain size is associated with natal dispersal rate and species’ vulnerability to climate change in seabirds

The cognitive buffer hypothesis proposes that species with larger brains
(relative to their body size) exhibit greater behavioural flexibility,
conferring an advantage in unpredictable or novel environments. Therefore,
behavioural flexibility – and relative brain size – are likely to be
important predictors of a species’ vulnerability to anthropogenic
pressures and, ultimately, extinction risk. However, current evidence
linking brain size to species vulnerability and extinction risk is
inconclusive. Furthermore, studies examining the relationship between
relative brain size and behavioural flexibility have mainly focused on
foraging innovations, whilst other forms of behavioural flexibility remain
unexplored. In this study, we collate species-specific information and
examine links between relative brain size, rates of natal and adult
dispersal (a measure of flexibility in breeding site fidelity),
vulnerability to six anthropogenic threats and extinction risk for 131
species of seabird. We focused our study on seabirds, a highly threatened
group that displays large variation in both relative brain size and
dispersal behaviour. We found a significant positive relationship between
relative brain size and natal dispersal rate, suggesting that relative
brain size could enhance flexibility in breeding site choice in seabirds,
consistent with the cognitive buffer hypothesis. However, this
relationship does not persist when we consider adult dispersal, possibly
reflecting constraints imposed by mate selection and knowledge transfer in
seabirds. We also show that relative brain size is negatively associated
with vulnerability to climate change. These findings have immediate
application for predicting interspecific variation in species’
vulnerability to climate change and identifying priority species for
conservation.