Now you see it, now you don't: flushing hosts prior to experimentation can predict their responses to brood parasitism

Scientific Reports
Daniel HanleyTomáš Grim

Abstract

Brood parasitic birds lay their eggs in other birds' nests, leaving hosts to raise their offspring. To understand parasite-host coevolutionary arms races, many studies have examined host responses to experimentally introduced eggs. However, attending parents often need to be flushed from their nests to add experimental eggs. If these birds witness parasitism events, they may recognize and reject foreign eggs more readily than parents who did not. We found that, after being flushed, female blackbirds, Turdus merula, remained close to their nests. Flushed females were more likely to eject foreign eggs and did so more quickly than females that were not flushed during experimentation. In contrast, flushing did not predict responses and latency to responses to parasitism by song thrush, Turdus philomelos, which flew farther from their nests and likely did not witness experimental parasitism. When statistically considering flushing, previously published conclusions regarding both species' response to experimental parasitism did not change. Nevertheless, we recommend that researchers record and statistically control for whether hosts were flushed prior to experimental parasitism. Our results have broad implications because more vigila...Continue Reading

References

May 20, 2009·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Douglas J LeveyScott K Robinson
Jan 20, 2011·The Journal of Animal Ecology·Tomáš GrimBård G Stokke
Jul 1, 2011·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Heather N CornellShannon Pecoraro
Sep 17, 2011·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Branislav IgicMark E Hauber
Sep 26, 2013·Nature Communications·Martin StevensClaire N Spottiswoode

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Citations

Jun 24, 2017·Die Naturwissenschaften·Miri DainsonDaniel Hanley
Aug 16, 2016·Ecology and Evolution·Daniel HanleyMarcel Honza
Feb 10, 2017·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Daniel HanleyMark E Hauber
Apr 11, 2019·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Daniel HanleyMark E Hauber
Jan 27, 2015·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Zachary AidalaMark E Hauber

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