Increased host tolerance of multiple cuckoo eggs leads to higher fledging success of the brood parasite

Moskát, Csaba; Hauber, Márk E.; Avilés, Jesús M.; Bán, Miklós; Hargitai, Rita; Honza, Marcel

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.01.030

Cited by 54 publications

(85 citation statements)

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“…Further studies are needed to clarify the relative importance of discordancy and true recognition in different host species. Great reed warblers' variable tolerance of multiple cuckoo eggs with different egg types (Honza and Moskát, 2005;Hauber et al, 2006;Moskát et al, 2009) suggests that the method of egg discrimination, or the efficiency of the method applied, may depend on the type of parasitism (e.g. single versus multiple, sequential parasitism, egg mimicry and the variation in the level of mimicry of parasitic eggs within the same clutch).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Jamieson et al, 2000). The two most prevalent mechanisms for egg recognition (Rothstein, 1974;Lahti and Lahti, 2002;Moskát et al, 2009) are (i) discordancy and (ii) recognition from template (Table1). The latter mechanism requires knowledge of the appearance of the host's own eggs and has been termed 'true recognition' (Hauber and Sherman, 2001) because it requires neural encoding of the recognition template of own eggs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Discordancy or template-based recognition? Dissecting the cognitive basis of the rejection of foreign eggs in hosts of avian brood parasites

Moskát

Bán

Székely

et al. 2010

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYMany avian hosts have evolved antiparasite defence mechanisms, including egg rejection, to reduce the costs of brood parasitism. The two main alternative cognitive mechanisms of egg discrimination are thought to be based on the perceived discordancy of eggs in a clutch or the use of recognition templates by hosts. Our experiments reveal that the great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus), a host of the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), relies on both mechanisms. In support of the discordancy mechanism, hosts rejected their own eggs (13%) and manipulated ('parasitic') eggs (27%) above control levels in experiments when manipulated eggs were in the majority but when clutches also included a minority of own eggs. Hosts that had the chance to observe the manipulated eggs daily just after laying did not show stronger rejection of manipulated eggs than when the eggs were manipulated at clutch completion. When clutches contained only manipulated eggs, in 33% of the nests hosts showed rejection, also supporting a mechanism of template-based egg discrimination. Rejection using a recognition template might be more advantageous because discordancy-based egg discrimination is increasingly error prone with higher rates of multiple parasitism.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discordancy or template-based recognition? Dissecting the cognitive basis of the rejection of foreign eggs in hosts of avian brood parasites

Moskát

Bán

Székely

et al. 2010

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…There is growing evidence that the multiple parasitism of host nests is an important consideration for host -parasite interactions in a variety of avian brood parasite systems [21,25,[33][34][35][36][37]. Arms races between brood parasites and their hosts have been well documented as potent drivers of parasite adaptations [38], but intraspecific arms races within parasites, arising wherever females are forced to compete for the same host nests, can be a similarly fierce selective agent on precisely the same traits [39].…”

Section: (B) Multiple Parasitism and Intraspecific Arms Racesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cryptic cuckoo eggs hide from competing cuckoos

Keller

Langmore

2014

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Interspecific arms races between cuckoos and their hosts have produced remarkable examples of mimicry, with parasite eggs evolving to match host egg appearance and so evade removal by hosts. Certain bronze-cuckoo species, however, lay eggs that are cryptic rather than mimetic. These eggs are coated in a low luminance pigment that camouflages them within the dark interiors of hosts' nests. We investigated whether cuckoo egg crypsis is likely to have arisen from the same coevolutionary processes known to favour egg mimicry. We added high and low luminance-painted eggs to the nests of large-billed gerygones (Gerygone magnirostris), a host of the little bronze-cuckoo (Chalcites minutillus). Gerygones rarely rejected either egg type, and did not reject natural cuckoo eggs. Cuckoos, by contrast, regularly removed an egg from clutches before laying their own and were five times more likely to remove a high luminance model than its low luminance counterpart. Given that we found one-third of all parasitized nests were exploited by multiple cuckoos, our results suggest that competition between cuckoos has been the key selective agent for egg crypsis. In such intraspecific arms races, crypsis may be favoured over mimicry because it can reduce the risk of egg removal to levels below chance.

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“…Prior perceptual modelling has revealed that the consistently low chromatic contrasts between the background colours of host and parasite eggs render most cuckoo eggs visually indistinguishable from the host's own eggs (Stoddard and Stevens 2011 ;Igic et al 2012 ;Hauber et al 2015 ). Yet, these hosts still reject about one-third of naturally laid parasite eggs in the Hungarian population (Moskát et al 2009 ), likely by identifying poorly mimetic foreign eggs through both maculation (Moskát et al 2010 ) and coloration (Bán et al 2013 ). Here, we assessed experimentally whether the chromatic contrast between eggs and nests provided a direct, or additional, cue in the detection and rejection parasitic eggs by great reed warblers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We acknowledge that our natural and experimental nest treatments were conducted in different years; however, annual differences in the rejection rates of experimentally dyed eggs are not a known confounding factor in this host species (Moskát et al 2009 ), despite some annual variation in the great reed warbler's egg appearance (Honza et al 2012 ) and, likely, also nest appearance. To mediate this concern, we also report and statistically analyse egg rejection rates of the hosts' own eggs from each year and each egg-nest manipulation experiment as an internal control.…”

Section: Aq6mentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental shifts in egg–nest contrasts do not alter egg rejection responses in an avian host–brood parasite system

et al. 2015

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Obligate brood parasitic birds exploit their hosts to provide care for unrelated young in the nest. Potential hosts can reduce the cost of parasitism by rejecting foreign eggs from the nest. Observational, comparative, and experimental studies have concluded that most hosts use the coloration and patterning of eggshells to discriminate between own and foreign eggs in the nest. However, an alternative hypothesis is that birds use the colour contrasts between eggshells and the nest lining to identify parasitic eggs (egg-nest contrast hypothesis). In support of this hypothesis, we found that the avian perceivable chromatic contrasts between dyed eggs and unmanipulated nest linings significantly and negatively covaried with the rejection rates of different dyed eggs of the great reed warbler Acrocephalus arundinaceus, a frequently parasitized host of the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus. To experimentally test whether egg-nest contrasts influence rejection, we reciprocally dyed both eggs and the nest lining of this host species with one of two colours: orange and green. Contrary to the egg-nest contrast hypothesis, host rejection patterns in response to dyed eggs were not altered by dyeing nests, relative to unmanipulated control eggs and nests. In turn, experimental egg colour was the only significant predictor of egg rejection rate. Our results demonstrate that egg-nest contrast is a collateral, not a causal factor in egg rejection, and confirm the conclusions of previous studies that hosts can rely on the parasitic egg's appearance itself to recognize the foreign egg in the nest.

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Increased host tolerance of multiple cuckoo eggs leads to higher fledging success of the brood parasite

Cited by 54 publications

References 94 publications

Discordancy or template-based recognition? Dissecting the cognitive basis of the rejection of foreign eggs in hosts of avian brood parasites

Discordancy or template-based recognition? Dissecting the cognitive basis of the rejection of foreign eggs in hosts of avian brood parasites

Cryptic cuckoo eggs hide from competing cuckoos

Experimental shifts in egg–nest contrasts do not alter egg rejection responses in an avian host–brood parasite system

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