Responses of incubating females to female cuckoo calls in 2 hole-nesting bird species.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Shen C
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8489118 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Responses of incubating females to female cuckoo calls in 2 hole-nesting bird species.
Shen Chao C Yu Jiangping J Li Xudong X Yue Jing J Wang Haitao H Liang Wei W
Current zoology 20210121 5
Similar Datasets
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Project description:Egg retrieval in birds may help ensure the survival of eggs and improve reproductive success. However, with the risk of brood parasitism, for ground-nesting or cavity-nesting bird hosts, there is a significant reproductive cost and thus a reduction in fitness if the host wrongly retrieved the parasitic eggs. The south rock bunting (Emberiza yunnanensis) and yellow-throated bunting (E. elegans) are hosts for common cuckoos (Cuculus canorus), which coexist within the study area and breed sympatrically in ground nests. Previous studies have found that these two species exhibit strong egg recognition and egg rejection of non-mimetic eggs. In this study, red model eggs, budgerigar eggs, and the host's own eggs were used to assess the recognition and retrieval behavior of two bunting hosts, particularly in response to different types of eggs placed at the nest edge. The results showed that both bunting hosts retrieved ca. 80% of own eggs and did not retrieve any red model eggs. This indicated that both species could distinguish non-mimetic model eggs from their own eggs and make appropriate decisions, which is consistent with their responses when encountering foreign eggs in the nest. However, both species simultaneously retrieved some (8.3% for the yellow-throated bunting and 19% for south rock bunting) of the highly mimetic budgerigar eggs, indicating that the degree of mimicry of foreign eggs affects their egg recognition and egg retrieval behavior. Factors such as parasitism risk, nest predation pressure, age differences, and experience of parent birds may combine to influence egg retrieval behavior of the host.
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Project description:Avian obligate brood parasites gain an advantage by removing the eggs of the cuckoos who have already visited the nest, which can increase the chances of survival for their offspring. Conversely, to prevent their eggs from being picked up by the next parasitic cuckoo, they need to take some precautions. Egg mimicry and egg crypsis are two alternative strategies to prevent the parasitized egg from being picked up by another parasitic cuckoo. Here, we tested whether the egg crypsis hypothesis has a preventative effect when common cuckoos (Cuculus canorus) parasitize their Oriental reed warbler (Acrocephalus orientalis) hosts. We designed two experimental groups with different crypsis effects to induce common cuckoos to lay eggs and observed whether the cuckoos selectively picked up the experimental eggs with low crypsis levels in the process of parasitism. Our results supported the egg crypsis hypothesis; the observed cuckoos significantly preferred to select the more obvious white model eggs. This shows that even in an open nest, eggs that are adequately hidden can also be protected from being picked up by cuckoo females during parasitism so as to increase the survival chance of their own parasitic eggs.
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Project description:Sex biases in prevalence of disease are often attributed to intrinsic factors, such as physiological differences while a proximate role of extrinsic factors such as behavioural or ecological differences may be more difficult to establish. We combined large-scale screening for the presence and lineage identity of avian malaria (haemosporidian) parasites, in 1234 collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis) with life-history information from each bird to establish the location and timing of infection. We found an overall infection rate of 36.2% ± 0.03 (95% CI) with 25 distinct malaria lineages. Interestingly, first-year breeding males and females had similar infection prevalence while females accrued a significantly higher infection rate than males later in life. The sex difference in infection rate was driven by the most abundant Haemoproteus, lineage, hPHSIB1, while the infection rate of Plasmodium lineages was similar in males and females. Furthermore, when infections were assigned to an apparent transmission location, we found that the sex difference in infection rate trend was driven by lineages transmitted in Europe, more specifically by one lineage (the hPHSIB1), while no similar pattern was found in African lineages. We deduce that the observed infection patterns are likely to be caused by differences in breeding behaviour, with incubating females (and nestling individuals of both sexes) being easy targets for the biting insects that are the vectors of avian malaria parasites. Overall, our results are most consistent with ecological factors rather than intrinsic factors underlying the observed sex-biased infection rate of avian malaria in collared flycatchers.
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