Patterns of stress response to foreign eggs by a rejecter host of an obligate avian brood parasite.

ABSTRACT: One of the most effective defenses of avian hosts against obligate brood parasites is the ejection of parasitic eggs from the nests. Despite the clear fitness benefits of this behavior, individuals within so-called "egg-rejecter" host species still show substantial variation in their propensity to eliminate foreign eggs from the nest. We argue that this variation can be further understood by studying the physiological mechanisms of host responses to brood parasitic egg stimuli: independent lines of research increasingly support the hypothesis that stress-related physiological response to parasitic eggs may trigger egg rejection. The "stress-mediated egg rejection" hypothesis requires that hosts activate the stress-response when responding to parasitic egg stimuli. We tested this prediction

SUBMITTER: Abolins-Abols M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9848814 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature