The evolution of egg rejection by cuckoo hosts in Australia and Europe

Langmore, Naomi E.; Kilner, Rebecca M.; Butchart, Stuart H. M.; Maurer, Golo; Davies, N. B.; Cockburn, Andrew; Macgregor, Nicholas A.; Magrath, Michael J. L.; Dowling, Damian K.

doi:10.1093/beheco/ari041

Cited by 113 publications

(116 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Additionally, we found that latitude is a good predictor of egg rejection behaviour; species at higher latitudes showed higher egg rejection rates. Latitude is highly correlated with seasonality [12]; thus, the pattern detected suggests that egg rejection is more likely to evolve in highly seasonal environments, where opportunities for re-nesting are more scarce, and the costs of being parasitized may be higher [6]. Clutch size and nest type were not predictors of egg rejection in hosts of evicting or non-evicting parasites.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…One of the most intensively studied defences is egg rejection. To date, egg rejection has been studied in around 200 different bird species [5,6]. Surprisingly, despite the effectiveness of egg rejection as a defence against brood parasitism, not all host species reject foreign eggs [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, the most obvious variable is whether a species is a suitable and a current host of a brood parasite [6]. Suitability is assessed based on the diet of the host chicks and nesting habits [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By using a much larger dataset and recent, more robust phylogenetic techniques and phylogenies than previous studies [6][7][8]11], we aimed to arrive at a unified understanding of why egg rejection evolves in birds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The costs of avian brood parasitism explain variation in egg rejection behaviour in hosts

Medina

Langmore

2015

Biol. Lett.

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Many bird species can reject foreign eggs from their nests. This behaviour is thought to have evolved in response to brood parasites, birds that lay their eggs in the nest of other species. However, not all hosts of brood parasites evict parasitic eggs. In this study, we collate data from egg rejection experiments on 198 species, and perform comparative analyses to understand the conditions under which egg rejection evolves. We found evidence, we believe for the first time in a large-scale comparative analysis, that (i) non-current host species have rejection rates as high as current hosts, (ii) egg rejection is more likely to evolve when the parasite is relatively large compared with its host and (iii) egg rejection is more likely to evolve when the parasite chick evicts all the host eggs from the nest, such as in cuckoos. Our results suggest that the interactions between brood parasites and their hosts have driven the evolution of egg rejection and that variation in the costs inflicted by parasites is fundamental to explaining why only some host species evolve egg rejection.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The costs of avian brood parasitism explain variation in egg rejection behaviour in hosts

Medina

Langmore

2015

Biol. Lett.

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“…b The relationship between egg-nest contrast, plotted as the mean JNDs between unmanipulated host nest lining However, egg rejection behaviours of hosts are also influenced by the physical and biotic properties of the nest environment. Some of these factors include the intensity (Langmore et al 2005 ) and composition (Honza et al 2011 ) of the light illuminating the nest (Honza et al 2014 ), the number and colour of the other eggs in the nest (Lang et al 2014 ;Moskát et al 2014a ;Yang et al 2014 ), variation in the arrangement of the whole clutch (Polaciková et al 2013 ; but see Hanley et al 2015 ), and the prior presence of parasitic eggs in the clutch (Hauber et al 2006 ;Moskát and Hauber 2007 ;Moskát et al 2014b ). Similarly, important factors include the date of clutch initiation by the host (de Mársico et al 2013 ), and the presence of brood parasitic adults near the nest or in the breeding habitat (Davies and Brooke 1988 ;Mosknes and Røskaft 1989;Bártolet al 2002 ).…”

Section: Figmentioning

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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Brood parasitism and egg recognition in three bunting hosts of the cuckoos

Zhang,

Zhong,

Wan

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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Comparative studies of egg recognition and rejection between various sympatric hosts provide insight into the coevolutionary history of the hosts and parasites, as well as the degree of antagonism between the species. Although buntings are widely considered to be a suitable host taxon for cuckoos, there has been relatively little research on this example of parasitism and host antiparasitic behaviour. Here we provided the first report on brood parasitism and egg recognition in three sympatric ground‐nesting bunting hosts of the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), namely the yellow‐throated bunting (Emberiza elegans), south rock bunting (E. yunnanensis), and crested bunting (E. lathami). The results show that for the five breeding seasons during 2018–2022, the parasitism rate by common cuckoos was 0.87% and 0.45% in yellow‐throated buntings and south rock buntings, respectively, whereas the parasitism rate by an unidentified parasite was 4% during 2018–2023 in the crested bunting. The rejection rates of the three bunting hosts for blue non‐mimetic eggs were 89.3%, 88.9%, and 100% for yellow‐throated buntings, south rock buntings, and crested buntings, respectively. The rejection rates for red non‐mimetic eggs by yellow‐throated buntings and south rock buntings were lower at 76.9% and 82.4%, respectively. All three sympatric bunting hosts examined had high levels of egg recognition and egg rejection, suggesting that it may have been subjected to high parasitic history and that egg recognition ability was retained after the loss of parasitism, which needs to be further verified by future experiments.

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The evolution of egg rejection by cuckoo hosts in Australia and Europe

Cited by 113 publications

References 33 publications

The costs of avian brood parasitism explain variation in egg rejection behaviour in hosts

The costs of avian brood parasitism explain variation in egg rejection behaviour in hosts

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

Brood parasitism and egg recognition in three bunting hosts of the cuckoos

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