Abstract Animals raised in captivity go through drastically different life experiences compared with those raised in the wild. The captive environment is usually characterised by highly stable conditions and limited social interactions. Such early developmental environment, alone and interacting with genes, can have long-lasting effects on cognitive performance. By testing pairs of mothers and offspring delicate skinks, Lampropholis delicata , we investigated how being raised in a captive environment shapes spatial learning. Additionally, with this design, we were able to evaluate the additive genetic component and strength of genetic effects in this lizard species. Using a Y-maze task, we compared the spatial learning abilities of wild-caught adult female (mothers) delicate skinks, to their captive-born and raised sexually mature offspring. We found that more mothers completed the task and showed shorter latencies compared with offspring who took longer to complete the maze. The offspring performance did not appear to correlate with their mothers’ performance, indicating little narrow-sense heritability. Furthermore, offspring performance was neither affected nor predicted by their mothers’ performance, indicating a limited overall genetic effect. Our results suggest that early life experiences in a captive environment may have a hindering effect on cognitive performance. Significance statement How important are environmental effects compared with genetics on the development of learning abilities in non-human animals? Studying mother-offspring skink pairs, we show that wild-born mothers outperformed their captive-born offspring in a spatial learning task. We further show that offspring performance in the task was neither explained nor predicted by their mothers’ performance. We suggest that conditions during early-life stages shape spatial learning more than genetics, and stable captive conditions may have a negative effect on the development of spatial learning.

中文翻译：

---

圈养和野生蜥蜴的空间学习：遗传性和环境影响

摘要 人工饲养的动物与野外饲养的动物相比，经历了截然不同的生活经历。圈养环境通常以高度稳定的条件和有限的社会互动为特征。这种早期的发育环境，单独并与基因相互作用，可以对认知表现产生长期影响。通过测试成对的母亲和后代精致的石龙子，Lampropholis delicata，我们研究了在圈养环境中长大如何影响空间学习。此外，通过这种设计，我们能够评估这种蜥蜴物种的附加遗传成分和遗传效应的强度。使用 Y 迷宫任务，我们比较了野生捕获的成年雌性（母亲）娇嫩的石龙子与其圈养出生和长大的性成熟后代的空间学习能力。我们发现，与完成迷宫所需的时间更长的后代相比，更多的母亲完成了任务并显示出更短的等待时间。后代的表现似乎与其母亲的表现没有相关性，表明狭义遗传力很小。此外，后代的表现既不受其母亲表现的影响也不受其预测，表明整体遗传效应有限。我们的研究结果表明，在圈养环境中的早期生活经历可能会对认知表现产生阻碍作用。意义声明 与遗传学相比，环境影响对非人类动物学习能力的发展有多重要？研究母-后代石龙子对，我们表明野生母亲在空间学习任务中的表现优于圈养出生的后代。我们进一步表明，后代在任务中的表现既不能被母亲的表现解释也不能预测。我们认为早期生活阶段的条件比遗传更能影响空间学习，稳定的圈养条件可能对空间学习的发展产生负面影响。