Code and data for: Spatial cognitive ability is associated with longevity in food-caching chickadees

Cognitive abilities are hypothesized to affect survival and lifespan in non-human animals. However, most tests of this hypothesis have relied on interspecific comparisons of indirect measures of cognitive ability, such as brain size. Here we present direct evidence that individual variation in cognitive abilities is associated with differences in lifespan in a wild food-caching bird. We measured the spatial cognitive abilities and tracked the lifespan of 227 mountain chickadees (<i>Poecile gambeli</i>) in their natural environment and found that individuals with better spatial learning and memory abilities involved in food caching lived longer. These results confirm that enhanced cognitive abilities can be associated with longer life in wild animals and that selection on cognitive abilities can lead to increased lifespan.