The perceptual and chemical bases of egg discrimination in communally nesting greater anis Crotophaga major

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (8) ◽  
pp. e01776 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark E. Hauber ◽  
Miri Dainson ◽  
Daniel T. Baldassarre ◽  
Marouf Hossain ◽  
Mande Holford ◽  
...  
The Condor ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 819-821 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Sorenson

Ibis ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 155 (3) ◽  
pp. 571-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Canchao Yang ◽  
Longwu Wang ◽  
Yu-Cheng Hsu ◽  
Anton Antonov ◽  
Arne Moksnes ◽  
...  

Behaviour ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 154 (5) ◽  
pp. 541-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Y. Chock ◽  
Tina W. Wey ◽  
Luis A. Ebensperger ◽  
Loren D. Hayes

Recent research in behavioural ecology has revealed the structure of animal personality and connections to ecologically and evolutionarily important traits. Personality is hypothesized to influence social interactions through individual behavioural differences or personality-based dyadic interactions. We describe the structure of personality traits and ask if two traits, boldness and exploration, play a role in the strength or pattern of social associations in a wild population of degus, a rodent that often lives communally with unrelated conspecifics. Boldness was repeatable in both adults and juveniles, but exploration was only repeatable in adults. We found evidence for a behavioural syndrome between exploration and boldness in adult degus. We documented negative assortment by exploratory personality type; more exploratory animals shared burrows with less exploratory animals. However, tendency towards boldness and exploration were not predictive of association strength. Our results highlight a potential connection between personality and social structure in a communally nesting species.


The Condor ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 414-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Antonov ◽  
Bård G. Stokke ◽  
Arne Moksnes ◽  
Eivin RØskaft

Abstract Although Old World buntings (Emberizinae) may be considered suitable Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) hosts, there is at present no evidence that any of the European species are regularly parasitized. Most historical parasitism records refer to the Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) and Reed Bunting (E. schoeniclus). Both of these species reject almost 100% of experimentally added nonmimetic eggs, and also a considerable proportion of experimentally added conspecific eggs, showing exquisite egg discrimination abilities. In this paper, we report Common Cuckoo parasitism and egg rejection behavior in a Bulgarian population of another Old World Emberizinae, the Corn Bunting (Miliaria calandra). We found this species was regularly parasitized (9%, 8 of 90 nests) and that the parasitism rate was consistent among the three years of our study. Naturally laid Common Cuckoo eggs were fairly good mimics of host eggs and most were accepted (5 of 7). The Corn Bunting proved to be a suitable Common Cuckoo host as we recorded a successfully fledged cuckoo chick. Unlike Yellowhammers and Reed Buntings, Corn Buntings rejected only 42% (16 of 38) of experimentally introduced nonmimetic model Common Cuckoo eggs and none of the experimentally introduced conspecific eggs (n  =  13). Parasitized nests had more and higher trees in the vicinity than unparasitized nests and breeding habitat characteristics may explain the difference in egg discrimination abilities between Corn Buntings and other Old World Emberizinae.


The Condor ◽  
10.1650/7365 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 106 (2) ◽  
pp. 405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petr Procházka ◽  
Marcel Honza
Keyword(s):  

2004 ◽  
Vol 82 (9) ◽  
pp. 1399-1407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd J Underwood ◽  
Spencer G Sealy ◽  
Celia M McLaren

In the absence of brood parasitism in North America, black-billed magpies, Pica hudsonia (Sabine, 1822), and yellow-billed magpies, Pica nuttalli (Audubon, 1837), may have retained egg-discrimination behaviour that evolved in Eurasian magpies, Pica pica (L., 1758), in response to parasitism by Old World cuckoos. We further examined this hypothesis by testing the egg-discrimination abilities of black-billed magpies and the American crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos Brehm, 1822, which has no history of brood parasitism. In addition, we tested an alternative hypothesis that black-billed magpies evolved or retained egg discrimination to counter conspecific parasitism by testing their ability to eject foreign conspecific eggs and by using a signal detection model to estimate the level of conspecific parasitism required for ejection to be favoured. Black-billed magpies ejected all non-mimetic eggs and 62% of mimetic eggs. Significantly more mimetic eggs were ejected during the incubation stage than during the laying stage. Magpies ejected significantly more non-mimetic eggs than mimetic eggs overall, but there was no difference in ejection frequency during incubation. American crows ejected 21% of non-mimetic eggs and 8% of mimetic eggs. There was no significant difference in ejection frequency of the two egg types. Black-billed magpies ejected 11% of conspecific eggs and a relatively high level of conspecific parasitism (22%–49%) would be required to select for conspecific ejection, which provides little support for conspecific parasitism as a current selection pressure for maintaining egg discrimination. Thus, black-billed magpies appear to have retained egg rejection in the absence of parasitism through speciation from Eurasian magpies.


1995 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 1185-1209 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARNON LOTEM ◽  
HIROSHI NAKAMURA ◽  
AMOTZ ZAHAVI
Keyword(s):  

Behaviour ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 150 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Longwu Wang ◽  
Canchao Yang ◽  
Yu-Cheng Hsu ◽  
Anton Antonov ◽  
Arne Moksnes ◽  
...  

Conspecific brood parasitism (CBP) is common in a variety of animal taxa, including birds. In coots (Fulica spp.), and the closely related moorhens (Gallinula spp.), such parasitism is especially common, and hosts experience considerable costs through increased chick competition soon after hatching. Hence, these birds have evolved egg recognition and rejection abilities, e.g., egg counting, burying the foreign eggs, assigning them suboptimal positions within the mixed clutch, or deserting parasitized clutches. For common moorhens (Gallinula chloropus) it has been shown that desertion of parasitized nests pays most at the early egg laying stage. Later on, the costs of desertion exceed the costs of brood parasitism and acceptance is favoured. Here we tested moorhen egg discrimination behaviour during the incubation stage when acceptance of foreign eggs is expected. Four treatments were applied: (1) single added non-mimetic pale blue egg, (2) single added non-mimetic white chicken egg, (3) four foreign conspecific eggs added to the clutch and (4) four foreign conspecific eggs exchanged for four host eggs. Moorhens responded by egg destruction (47%) only to the increased clutch size but not to foreign egg colour and size match. In three nests where egg destruction occurred, all the eggs in the mixed clutch were destroyed by pecking, in two other nests one of the foreign eggs were pecked, while two other nests were deserted. These results are puzzling since moorhens have been shown to possess refined egg recognition abilities. To our knowledge, such destruction of parasitized clutches by moorhens during incubation has not previously been reported. We suggest that after clutch completion, moorhens use increase in clutch size as a cue to determine if they have been parasitized, and some individuals choose to reject parasitic eggs by deserting or destroying the whole clutch.


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