Predator-prey interactions as drivers of cognitive evolution

Eamonn Wooster , Martin Whiting, Dale Nimmo, Ferran Sayol, Alexandra Carthey, Lauren Stanton, Benjamin Ashton

Despite decades of research, how and why cognition varies between and within species remains hotly debated. Social interactions and environmental variability are the leading hypotheses for cognitive evolution, but these factors fail to account for large amounts of cognitive variation. Evidence is mounting that interactions between predators and prey are a key driver of cognition, but research on the link between predation and cognition has been deemed largely unfeasible until now. Here, we outline how predator-prey interactions may drive cognitive evolution and maintain cognitive variation – we formalise this as the Predatory Intelligence Hypothesis (PIH). The PIH posits the cognitive challenges associated with predator-prey interactions drive a cognitive co-evolutionary arms race between predators and prey promoting bidirectional enhancements in cognition. Our synthesis provides a series of predictions, methodologies and future directions for research that will facilitate uncovering the role of predation in the evolution of intelligence.