Nest desertion as an anti-parasitism strategy in hosts selects for late egg-laying behavior in cuckoos
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Zhong G
PROVIDER: S-EPMC10641250 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:To maximize their offspring success common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) females should lay their eggs into host nests before incubation has begun. This ensures that the parasite chick hatches before all host chicks and can evict its foster siblings to monopolize host parental care. Many studies have demonstrated that most cuckoo eggs are indeed laid before the onset of host incubation. But cues used by female cuckoos to choose the right nest at the right time remain unclear. Here, we combine field observations with a field experiment to test whether female cuckoos use the number of eggs in the nests of their Oriental reed warbler (Acrocephalus orientalis) hosts to direct their choice. Over 8 years of field observations and 5 years of experiments, cuckoo females placed the majority of their eggs in nests with fewer than three host eggs, i.e. early in the laying sequence. For natural nests, the cuckoos may use information gleaned from the activity and behaviour of the host parents to make their choice. In our sets of experimental nests containing different numbers of model eggs, the vast majority of parasitism events occurred in nests containing a single egg. To our knowledge, this is the first field experiment showing that cuckoos choose host nests for parasitism based on the number of host eggs they contain. It appears that cuckoo females use the egg number to estimate the appropriate host nest stage for timely parasitism.
| S-EPMC7341929 | biostudies-literature
Project description:As the frontline defense against avian brood parasitism, nest defense is important in reducing nest parasitism and increasing host fitness. However, systematic studies on its effectiveness (i.e., on whether it successfully prevents cuckoo parasitism) are scarce. Based on 214 video recordings from 10 years of field observations, we evaluated the effectiveness of nest defenses of the Oriental reed warbler (Acrocephalus orientalis) in deterring common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) parasitism. Under a breeding pair situation (≤ 2 hosts individuals), warblers were hardly effective in resisting the egg-laying of the cuckoo and many of the cuckoos under attack were able to complete the parasitic process without being harmed. However, when hosts ≥ 3 individuals, the warblers could effectively thwart the cuckoos and cause lethal damage to the cuckoo in partial cases. This indicated that the host group effectively resisted the cuckoo, demonstrating the importance of cooperation among host neighbors in resisting cuckoo parasitism.
| S-EPMC10090214 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Brood parasitism by cuckoos relies on manipulating hosts to raise their offspring and has evolved stunning adaptations to aid in their deception. The fact that cuckoos usually but not always, remove one or two host eggs while laying their eggs has been a longstanding focus of intensive research. However, the benefit of this behavior remains elusive. Moreover, the recently proposed help delivery hypothesis, predicting that egg removal by cuckoos may decrease the egg-laying duration in the parasitism process caused by biting action, lacks experimental verification. Therefore, in this study, we examined the effects of egg removal/biting on the egg-laying speed in the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) to experimentally test this hypothesis. We compared the duration of cuckoo egg-laying in empty nests, nests with host eggs, and nests with artificial blue stick models to test whether cuckoos biting an egg/stick can significantly hasten the egg-laying speed than no biting action. Our results showed that biting an egg or an object is associated with cuckoos laying approximately 37% faster than when they do not bite an egg or an object. This study provides the first experimental evidence for the help delivery hypothesis and demonstrates that when cuckoos bite eggs or other objects in the nest, they lay eggs more quickly and thereby avoid suffering the hosts' injurious attack.
| S-EPMC10716810 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The arms race between brood parasites and their hosts provides a classic model to study coevolution. Hosts often reject the parasitic egg, and brood parasites should therefore select host nests in which the colour of the eggs best matches that of their own. Although this hypothesis has received some support, direct experimental evidence is still lacking. Here, we report on a study of Daurian redstarts, which show a distinct egg-colour dimorphism, with females laying either blue or pink eggs. Redstarts are often parasitized by common cuckoos, which lay light blue eggs. First, we showed that cuckoo eggs were more similar in spectral reflectance to the blue than to the pink redstart egg morph. Second, we report that the natural parasitism rate was higher in blue than in pink host clutches. Third, we performed a field experiment in which we presented a dummy clutch of each colour morph adjacent to active redstart nests. In this set-up, cuckoos almost always chose to parasitize a blue clutch. Our results demonstrate that cuckoos actively choose redstart nests in which the egg colour matches the colour of their own eggs. Our study thus provides direct experimental evidence in support of the egg matching hypothesis.
| S-EPMC9943643 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Recognising and rejecting parasitic eggs is one of the most common anti-parasitism strategies used by host birds. However, the egg rejection of some hosts exhibits behavioural plasticity. To investigate whether the egg rejection behaviour of host birds changes after encountering a parasitism event, we conducted egg rejection experiments on the locally most common host of the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), the grey bushchat (Saxicola ferreus) in Yunnan, China. When a single pure white egg of the white-rumped munia (Lonchura striata) or a blue model egg was individually added to the nest of the grey bushchat, the rejection rate for the white-rumped munia eggs was as high as 93.3%, whereas the rejection rate for the blue model egg was minimal (5.56%). However, when the grey bushchat rejected the munia egg and a blue model egg was subsequently added to its nest, the rejection rate for the blue model egg was significantly higher, reaching 54.5%. When recognised, the presence of a non-mimetic foreign egg in the nest may then act as a cue indicating high parasitism risk for the host. Consequently, the bird may intensify its inspection of nest eggs, leading to increased rejection of the previously accepted blue model eggs. Our results are consistent with the optimal acceptance threshold hypothesis, suggesting that as the parasitism risk increases, the grey bushchat adjusts its acceptance threshold for foreign eggs to become more stringent.
| S-EPMC11707265 | biostudies-literature
Project description:To reproduce and to transmit disease, female mosquitoes must obtain blood meals and locate appropriate sites for egg laying (oviposition). While distinct sensory cues drive each behavior, humidity contributes to both. Here, we identify the mosquito's humidity sensors (hygrosensors). Using generalizable approaches designed to simplify genetic analysis in non-traditional model organisms, we demonstrate that the ionotropic receptor Ir93a mediates mosquito hygrosensation as well as thermosensation. We further show that Ir93a-dependent sensors drive human host proximity detection and blood-feeding behavior, consistent with the overlapping short-range heat and humidity gradients these targets generate. After blood feeding, gravid females require Ir93a to seek high humidity associated with preferred egg-laying sites. Reliance on Ir93a-dependent sensors to promote blood feeding and locate potential oviposition sites is shared between the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae and arbovirus vector Aedes aegypti. These Ir93a-dependent systems represent potential targets for efforts to control these human disease vectors.
| S-EPMC10023463 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The eggs of stick and leaf insects (Phasmatodea) bear strong resemblance to plant seeds and are commonly dispersed by females dropping them to the litter. Here we report a novel egg-deposition mode for Phasmatodea performed by an undescribed Vietnamese species of the enigmatic subfamily Korinninae that produces a complex egg case (ootheca), containing numerous eggs in a highly ordered arrangement. This novel egg-deposition mode is most reminiscent of egg cases produced by members of unrelated insect orders, e.g. by praying mantises (Mantodea) and tortoise beetles (Coleoptera: Cassidinae). Ootheca production constitutes a striking convergence and major transition in reproductive strategy among stick insects, viz. a shift from dispersal of individual eggs to elaborate egg concentration. Adaptive advantages of ootheca formation on arboreal substrate are likely related to protection against parasitoids and desiccation and to allocation of specific host plants. Our phylogenetic analysis of nuclear (28S, H3) and mitochondrial (COI, COII) genes recovered Korinninae as a subordinate taxon among the species-rich Necrosciinae with Asceles as sister taxon, thus suggesting that placement of single eggs on leaves by host plant specialists might be the evolutionary precursor of ootheca formation within stick insects.
| S-EPMC4648384 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundChanges in wild animal gut microbiotas may influence host health and fitness. While many studies have shown correlations between gut microbiota structure and external factors, few studies demonstrate causal links between environmental variables and microbiota shifts. Here, we use a fully factorial experiment to test the effects of elevated ambient temperature and natural nest parasitism by nest flies (Protocalliphora sialia) on the gut microbiotas of two species of wild birds, the eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis) and the tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor).ResultsWe find that bacterial communities from the nestlings of each host species show idiosyncratic responses to both heat and parasitism, with gut microbiotas of eastern bluebirds more disrupted by heat and parasitism than those of tree swallows. Thus, we find that eastern bluebirds are unable to maintain stable associations with their gut bacteria in the face of both elevated temperature and parasitism. In contrast, tree swallow gut microbiotas are not significantly impacted by either heat or nest parasitism.ConclusionsOur results suggest that excess heat (e.g., as a result of climate change) may destabilize natural host-parasite-microbiota systems, with the potential to affect host fitness and survival in the Anthropocene.
| S-EPMC8487522 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Many bird species can reject foreign eggs from their nests. This behaviour is thought to have evolved in response to brood parasites, birds that lay their eggs in the nest of other species. However, not all hosts of brood parasites evict parasitic eggs. In this study, we collate data from egg rejection experiments on 198 species, and perform comparative analyses to understand the conditions under which egg rejection evolves. We found evidence, we believe for the first time in a large-scale comparative analysis, that (i) non-current host species have rejection rates as high as current hosts, (ii) egg rejection is more likely to evolve when the parasite is relatively large compared with its host and (iii) egg rejection is more likely to evolve when the parasite chick evicts all the host eggs from the nest, such as in cuckoos. Our results suggest that the interactions between brood parasites and their hosts have driven the evolution of egg rejection and that variation in the costs inflicted by parasites is fundamental to explaining why only some host species evolve egg rejection.
| S-EPMC4528443 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BACKGROUND: Natural communities are structured by intra-guild competition, predation or parasitism and the abiotic environment. We studied the relative importance of these factors in two host-social parasite ecosystems in three ant communities in Europe (Bavaria) and North America (New York, West Virginia). We tested how these factors affect colony demography, life-history and the spatial pattern of colonies, using a large sample size of more than 1000 colonies. The strength of competition was measured by the distance to the nearest competitor. Distance to the closest social parasite colony was used as a measure of parasitism risk. Nest sites (i.e., sticks or acorns) are limited in these forest ecosystems and we therefore included nest site quality as an abiotic factor in the analysis. In contrast to previous studies based on local densities, we focus here on the positioning and spatial patterns and we use models to compare our predictions to random expectations. RESULTS: Colony demography was universally affected by the size of the nest site with larger and more productive colonies residing in larger nest sites of higher quality. Distance to the nearest competitor negatively influenced host demography and brood production in the Bavarian community, pointing to an important role of competition, while social parasitism was less influential in this community. The New York community was characterized by the highest habitat variability, and productive colonies were clustered in sites of higher quality. Colonies were clumped on finer spatial scales, when we considered only the nearest neighbors, but more regularly distributed on coarser scales. The analysis of spatial positioning within plots often produced different results compared to those based on colony densities. For example, while host and slavemaker densities are often positively correlated, slavemakers do not nest closer to potential host colonies than expected by random. CONCLUSIONS: The three communities are differently affected by biotic and abiotic factors. Some of the differences can be attributed to habitat differences and some to differences between the two slavemaking-host ecosystems. The strong effect of competition in the Bavarian community points to the scarcity of resources in this uniform habitat compared to the other more diverse sites. The decrease in colony aggregation with scale indicates fine-scale resource hotspots: colonies are locally aggregated in small groups. Our study demonstrates that species relationships vary across scales and spatial patterns can provide important insights into species interactions. These results could not have been obtained with analyses based on local densities alone. Previous studies focused on social parasitism and its effect on host colonies. The broader approach taken here, considering several possible factors affecting colony demography and not testing each one in isolation, shows that competition and environmental variability can have a similar strong impact on demography and life-history of hosts. We conclude that the effects of parasites or predators should be studied in parallel to other ecological influences.
| S-EPMC3078833 | biostudies-other