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Cognition is vital in decision-making and behaviour, but how cognition evolves remains one of the most enduring questions in biology. Recent discoveries suggest that cognition evolves via natural selection, with individual variation in cognitive ability influencing fitness and being passed onto offspring in wild animals. However, laboratory research has shown that cognitive ability is shaped not only by genetic inheritance, but also by an individual's experiences. Modern evolutionary theory hypothesises that an animal's experiences with the environment contribute to trait variation and influence evolutionary processes, but this possibility is largely unexplored for cognitive traits. The successful PhD candidate will join a Marsden-funded research team that aims to test how experience alters cognitive abilities, using a food-caching bird species, the toutouwai (Petroica longipes, North Island robin). In food-caching species, animals must remember where they have stored food and so spatial memory is hypothesised to evolve via natural selection. However, no study has experimentally tested whether experience can shape spatial memory 鈥� or any cognitive trait 鈥� in the wild. Your PhD research will contribute to experiments that aim to test 1) if repeated experience of cache theft causes birds to scatter caches more widely as a form of cache defence, 2) how the response to cache theft impacts spatial memory performance (as locating scattered caches increases cognitive demands), and 3) the resulting effects on survival and reproductive success in the wild. Ultimately, this funded PhD position will assist in revealing causes and consequences of cognitive variation in the wild, broadening our understanding of the evolutionary processes that shape animal minds.