As avian brood parasitism usually reduces hosts' reproductive success, hosts often exhibit strong defence mechanisms. While such host defences at the egg stage (especially egg rejection) have been extensively studied, defence mechanisms at the nestling stage have been reported only recently. We found a previously unknown anti-parasitism behaviour in the large-billed Gerygone, which is a host species of the little bronze-cuckoo, a host-evicting brood parasite. The hosts forcibly pulled resisting nestlings out of their nests and dumped them. Although it has been suggested that defence mechanisms at the nestling stage may evolve when host defence at the egg stage is evaded by the parasite, the studied host seems to lack an anti-parasitism strategy at the egg stage. This suggests that the evolutionary pathway may be quite different from those of previously studied cuckoo–host systems. Future research on this unique system may give us new insights into the evolution of avian brood parasitism.

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Virulence of avian brood parasites can trigger a coevolutionary arms race, which favours rejection of parasitic eggs or chicks by host parents, and in turn leads to mimicry in parasite eggs or chicks [1-7]. The appearance of host offspring is critical to enable host parents to detect parasites. Thus, increasing accuracy of parasites' mimicry can favour a newly emerged host morph to escape parasites' mimicry. If parasites catch up with the hosts with a newly acquired mimetic morph, host polymorphism should be maintained through apostatic (negative frequency-dependent) selection, which favours hosts rarer morphs [1-3,7]. Among population-wide polymorphism, uniformity of respective host morphs in single host nests stochastically prevents parasites from targeting any specific morph of hosts and thus helps parents detect parasitism. Polymorphism in such a state is well-known in egg appearances of hosts of brood parasitic birds [2,3,7], which might also occur in chick appearances when arms races escalate. Here, we present evidence of polymorphism in chick skin coloration in a cuckoo-host system: the fan-tailed gerygone Gerygone flavolateralis and its specialist brood parasite, the shining bronze-cuckoo Chalcites lucidus in New Caledonia (Figure 1A-C).

BackgroundUnlike northern Europe and most of northern North America, the Eastern Palearctic and the northwesternmost tip of North America are believed to have been almost unglaciated during the Quarternary glacial periods. This could have facilitated long-term survival of many organisms in that area. To evaluate this, we studied the phylogeography in east Asia and Alaska of a boreal migratory passerine bird, the Arctic Warbler Phylloscopus borealis, and compared our results with published data on especially North American species.ResultsIn a sample of 113 individuals from 18 populations we identified 42 haplotypes of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene, which separated into three clades: A - Alaska and mainland Eurasia (except Kamchatka); B - Kamchatka, Sakhalin and Hokkaido; and C - Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu (i.e. Japan except Hokkaido). The oldest split among these clades, between A/B and C, is estimated to have taken place sometime between the mid Pliocene and early Pleistocene, and the second divergence, between clades A and B, in the early to mid Pleistocene. Within all of the three main clades, there are signs of population expansion.ConclusionsThe Arctic Warbler separated into three main clades in close succession around the Pliocene/Pleistocene border, with the two northern clades diverging last. All three clades probably experienced population bottlenecks during the Pleistocene as a result of range shifts and contractions, but nevertheless survived and maintained their integrities. Several other clades of Northeastern Palearctic birds are noted to have diversified during the Pliocene. In contrast, avian species or phylogroups presently occupying formerly glaciated North American ground are generally younger. The differences between these regions could be due to slower speciation rates in the Eastern Palearctic due to less fragmentation of forest habitats during glacial periods, or to longer survival of Eastern Palearctic clades as a result of less severe conditions in that region compared to northern North America. Several other Palearctic organisms show concordant biogeographical patterns to that of the Arctic Warbler, indicating common causes of their diversifications.