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Egg rejection in blackbirds Turdus merula: a by-product of conspecific parasitism or successful resistance against interspecific brood parasites?
BACKGROUND: Traditional theory assumes that egg recognition and rejection abilities arise as a response against interspecific brood parasitism (IBP). However, rejection also appears in some species that are currently not exploited by interspecific parasites, such as Turdus thrushes. Recent evidences...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4828832/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27073406 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12983-016-0148-y |
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author | Ruiz-Raya, Francisco Soler, Manuel Roncalli, Gianluca Abaurrea, Teresa Ibáñez-Álamo, Juan Diego |
author_facet | Ruiz-Raya, Francisco Soler, Manuel Roncalli, Gianluca Abaurrea, Teresa Ibáñez-Álamo, Juan Diego |
author_sort | Ruiz-Raya, Francisco |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Traditional theory assumes that egg recognition and rejection abilities arise as a response against interspecific brood parasitism (IBP). However, rejection also appears in some species that are currently not exploited by interspecific parasites, such as Turdus thrushes. Recent evidences suggest that rejection abilities evolved in these species as a response to conspecific brood parasitism (CBP). To test these two alternative hypotheses, we performed an experimental study by parasitizing nests of the common blackbird (Turdus merula) with conspecifics or heterospecific eggs under different risk of parasitism (presence of interspecific or conspecific parasites near the nest). Common blackbird is a potential host of the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) but suffers low levels of CBP too. RESULTS: We found that blackbirds were able to recognize and eject heterospecific eggs at high rates whereas most of conspecifics eggs were not recognized and, therefore, accepted. Ejection rates of conspecific eggs did not exceed 13 %, even in situations of high risk of CBP (blackbird female placed near the nest), which contradict the main prediction derived from the CBP hypothesis. Conversely, ejection rates of experimental eggs simulating IBP were much higher (80–100 %). Furthermore, female blackbirds were more aggressive towards cuckoos than towards blackbird dummies. CONCLUSIONS: Our results considered together support the IBP hypothesis, indicating that recognition and rejection of parasitic eggs in blackbirds have probably evolved due to previous cuckoo parasitism. The current absence of IBP in blackbirds may be due to the highly efficient rejection abilities in this species. Thus, these abilities have been retained in absence of brood parasitism as a consequence of the low costs involved for blackbirds, resulting in a successful resistance against interspecific brood parasitism. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4828832 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-48288322016-04-13 Egg rejection in blackbirds Turdus merula: a by-product of conspecific parasitism or successful resistance against interspecific brood parasites? Ruiz-Raya, Francisco Soler, Manuel Roncalli, Gianluca Abaurrea, Teresa Ibáñez-Álamo, Juan Diego Front Zool Research BACKGROUND: Traditional theory assumes that egg recognition and rejection abilities arise as a response against interspecific brood parasitism (IBP). However, rejection also appears in some species that are currently not exploited by interspecific parasites, such as Turdus thrushes. Recent evidences suggest that rejection abilities evolved in these species as a response to conspecific brood parasitism (CBP). To test these two alternative hypotheses, we performed an experimental study by parasitizing nests of the common blackbird (Turdus merula) with conspecifics or heterospecific eggs under different risk of parasitism (presence of interspecific or conspecific parasites near the nest). Common blackbird is a potential host of the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) but suffers low levels of CBP too. RESULTS: We found that blackbirds were able to recognize and eject heterospecific eggs at high rates whereas most of conspecifics eggs were not recognized and, therefore, accepted. Ejection rates of conspecific eggs did not exceed 13 %, even in situations of high risk of CBP (blackbird female placed near the nest), which contradict the main prediction derived from the CBP hypothesis. Conversely, ejection rates of experimental eggs simulating IBP were much higher (80–100 %). Furthermore, female blackbirds were more aggressive towards cuckoos than towards blackbird dummies. CONCLUSIONS: Our results considered together support the IBP hypothesis, indicating that recognition and rejection of parasitic eggs in blackbirds have probably evolved due to previous cuckoo parasitism. The current absence of IBP in blackbirds may be due to the highly efficient rejection abilities in this species. Thus, these abilities have been retained in absence of brood parasitism as a consequence of the low costs involved for blackbirds, resulting in a successful resistance against interspecific brood parasitism. BioMed Central 2016-04-12 /pmc/articles/PMC4828832/ /pubmed/27073406 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12983-016-0148-y Text en © Ruiz-Raya et al. 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Ruiz-Raya, Francisco Soler, Manuel Roncalli, Gianluca Abaurrea, Teresa Ibáñez-Álamo, Juan Diego Egg rejection in blackbirds Turdus merula: a by-product of conspecific parasitism or successful resistance against interspecific brood parasites? |
title | Egg rejection in blackbirds Turdus merula: a by-product of conspecific parasitism or successful resistance against interspecific brood parasites? |
title_full | Egg rejection in blackbirds Turdus merula: a by-product of conspecific parasitism or successful resistance against interspecific brood parasites? |
title_fullStr | Egg rejection in blackbirds Turdus merula: a by-product of conspecific parasitism or successful resistance against interspecific brood parasites? |
title_full_unstemmed | Egg rejection in blackbirds Turdus merula: a by-product of conspecific parasitism or successful resistance against interspecific brood parasites? |
title_short | Egg rejection in blackbirds Turdus merula: a by-product of conspecific parasitism or successful resistance against interspecific brood parasites? |
title_sort | egg rejection in blackbirds turdus merula: a by-product of conspecific parasitism or successful resistance against interspecific brood parasites? |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4828832/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27073406 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12983-016-0148-y |
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