Camacho, Luciano; Guigueno, Mélanie

 - Abstract: Integrating cognitive ecology into conservation biology may provide valuable insights into species’ adaptive capacity under rapid environmental change. In long-lived seabirds, individual differences in cognition could influence reproductive performance and resilience. However, although age is known to affect cognitive performance, its impacts are challenging to quantify and remain largely undocumented in wild seabird populations. Using a long-term monitored colony of black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) on Middleton Island, Alaska, we quantified domain-general and domain-specific cognitive performance to test whether cognition and breeding experience predict reproductive success. Domain-general cognition was assessed through problem-solving tasks (string-pulling, lid-pulling, detour-reaching), while spatial association learning represented domain-specific cognition. A generalized linear model revealed no significant effect of spatial cognition (n = 21) or problem-solving (n = 50) on reproductive success in 2025 (p > 0.5), whereas breeding experience approached significance (p = 0.057). These results suggest that experience, rather than cognitive performance, may better explain reproductive output, highlighting the potential demographic importance of older, experienced individuals in seabird populations and their conservation value in maintaining population stability. Given our limited sample size and low statistical power, these findings should be interpreted cautiously. Future work should track individuals across multiple seasons to better disentangle the roles of experience and cognition in reproductive success.