Great spotted cuckoo fledglings often receive feedings from other magpie adults than their foster parents: which magpies accept to feed foreign cuckoo fledglings?

ABSTRACT: Natural selection penalizes individuals that provide costly parental care to non-relatives. However, feedings to brood-parasitic fledglings by individuals other than their foster parents, although anecdotic, have been commonly observed, also in the great spotted cuckoo (Clamator glandarius)--magpie (Pica pica) system, but this behaviour has never been studied in depth. In a first experiment, we here show that great spotted cuckoo fledglings that were translocated to a distant territory managed to survive. This implies that obtaining food from foreign magpies is a frequent and efficient strategy used by great spotted cuckoo fledglings. A second experiment, in which we presented a stuffed-cuckoo fledgling in magpie territories, showed that adult magpies caring for magpie fledglings responded

SUBMITTER: Soler M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4182665 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature