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Repeated targeting of the same hosts by a brood parasite compromises host egg rejection
Cuckoo eggs famously mimic those of their foster parents to evade rejection from discriminating hosts. Here we test whether parasites benefit by repeatedly parasitizing the same host nest. This should make accurate rejection decisions harder, regardless of the mechanism that hosts use to identify fo...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Pub. Group
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3791459/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24064931 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3475 |
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author | Stevens, Martin Troscianko, Jolyon Spottiswoode, Claire N. |
author_facet | Stevens, Martin Troscianko, Jolyon Spottiswoode, Claire N. |
author_sort | Stevens, Martin |
collection | PubMed |
description | Cuckoo eggs famously mimic those of their foster parents to evade rejection from discriminating hosts. Here we test whether parasites benefit by repeatedly parasitizing the same host nest. This should make accurate rejection decisions harder, regardless of the mechanism that hosts use to identify foreign eggs. Here we find strong support for this prediction in the African tawny-flanked prinia (Prinia subflava), the most common host of the cuckoo finch (Anomalospiza imberbis). We show experimentally that hosts reject eggs that differ from an internal template, but crucially, as the proportion of foreign eggs increases, hosts are less likely to reject them and require greater differences in appearance to do so. Repeated parasitism by the same cuckoo finch female is common in host nests and likely to be an adaptation to increase the probability of host acceptance. Thus, repeated parasitism interacts with egg mimicry to exploit cognitive and sensory limitations in host defences. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3791459 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Nature Pub. Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-37914592013-10-09 Repeated targeting of the same hosts by a brood parasite compromises host egg rejection Stevens, Martin Troscianko, Jolyon Spottiswoode, Claire N. Nat Commun Article Cuckoo eggs famously mimic those of their foster parents to evade rejection from discriminating hosts. Here we test whether parasites benefit by repeatedly parasitizing the same host nest. This should make accurate rejection decisions harder, regardless of the mechanism that hosts use to identify foreign eggs. Here we find strong support for this prediction in the African tawny-flanked prinia (Prinia subflava), the most common host of the cuckoo finch (Anomalospiza imberbis). We show experimentally that hosts reject eggs that differ from an internal template, but crucially, as the proportion of foreign eggs increases, hosts are less likely to reject them and require greater differences in appearance to do so. Repeated parasitism by the same cuckoo finch female is common in host nests and likely to be an adaptation to increase the probability of host acceptance. Thus, repeated parasitism interacts with egg mimicry to exploit cognitive and sensory limitations in host defences. Nature Pub. Group 2013-09-24 /pmc/articles/PMC3791459/ /pubmed/24064931 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3475 Text en Copyright © 2013, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Stevens, Martin Troscianko, Jolyon Spottiswoode, Claire N. Repeated targeting of the same hosts by a brood parasite compromises host egg rejection |
title | Repeated targeting of the same hosts by a brood parasite compromises host egg rejection |
title_full | Repeated targeting of the same hosts by a brood parasite compromises host egg rejection |
title_fullStr | Repeated targeting of the same hosts by a brood parasite compromises host egg rejection |
title_full_unstemmed | Repeated targeting of the same hosts by a brood parasite compromises host egg rejection |
title_short | Repeated targeting of the same hosts by a brood parasite compromises host egg rejection |
title_sort | repeated targeting of the same hosts by a brood parasite compromises host egg rejection |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3791459/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24064931 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3475 |
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