Functional significance of cuckoo Cuculus canorus calls: responses of conspecifics, hosts and non-hosts.

ABSTRACT: Male cuckoos Cuculus canorus produce calls that differ in number of syllables depending on environmental conditions and presence of male and female conspecifics. Why different males produce so repeatable calls that vary greatly in duration among males remains an open question. We used playback of cuckoo calls with few or many syllables (hereafter short and long calls), and woodpigeon calls (a control that also produces few or many syllables), predicting that playback of longer cuckoo calls should attract more male cuckoos (if males with such calls are dominant and successfully out-compete other males due to intraspecific competition), and attract more hosts mobbing male cuckoos (cuckoos with such calls and their females attract more hosts because of an increased risk of parasitism).

SUBMITTER: Tryjanowski P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6149496 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature