Discrimination and ejection of eggs and nestlings by the fan-tailed gerygone from New Caledonia.

ABSTRACT: Nestling rejection is a rare type of host defense against brood parasitism compared with egg rejection. Theoretically, host defenses at both egg and nestling stages could be based on similar underlying discrimination mechanisms but, due to the rarity of nestling rejector hosts, few studies have actually tested this hypothesis. We investigated egg and nestling discrimination by the fan-tailed gerygone Gerygone flavolateralis, a host that seemingly accepts nonmimetic eggs of its parasite, the shining bronze-cuckoo Chalcites lucidus, but ejects mimetic parasite nestlings. We introduced artificial eggs or nestlings and foreign gerygone nestlings in gerygone nests and compared begging calls of parasite and host nestlings. We found that the gerygone ejected artificial eggs only if

SUBMITTER: Attisano A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8599088 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature