Abstract
Parasites may, in multi-parasite systems, block the defenses of their hosts and thus thwart host recognition of parasites by frequency-dependent selection. Nest defenses as frontline may block or promote the subsequent stage of defenses such as egg recognition. We conducted comparative studies of the defensive strategies of a host of the Oriental cuckoo Cuculus optatus, the yellow-bellied prinia Prinia flaviventris, in mainland China with multiple species of cuckoos and in Taiwan with a single cuckoo species. Cuckoo hosts did not exhibit aggression toward cuckoos in the presence of multiple cuckoo species but showed strong aggressive defenses of hosts directed toward cuckoos in Taiwan. Furthermore, the cuckoo host in populations with a single cuckoo species was able to distinguish adults of its brood parasite, the Oriental cuckoo, from adult common cuckoos (Cuculus canorus). This represents the first case in which a cuckoo host has been shown to specifically distinguish Oriental cuckoo, from other Cuculus species. Hosts ejected eggs at a higher rate in a single cuckoo species system than in a multi-species cuckoo system, which supports the strategy facilitation hypothesis. Granularity analysis of variation in egg phenotype based on avian vision modeling supported the egg signature hypothesis in hosts because Taiwanese prinias increased consistency in the appearance of their eggs within individual hosts thus favoring efficient discrimination against cuckoo eggs. This study significantly improves our knowledge of intraspecific variation in antiparasitism behavior of hosts between single- and multi-cuckoo systems.
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Acknowledgments
C.Y. and L.W. contributed equally to this work. We would like to thank Ian Will from University of California, Berkeley, USA, for his assistance with the fieldwork in Guangxi. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31260514 to CY and 31071938 and 31272328 to WL), Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-13-0761 to CY and NCET-10-0111 to WL), Program of International S & T Cooperation (KJHZ2013-12), and Key Project of Chinese Ministry of Education (No. 212136) to CY.
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Communicated by: Alexandre Roulin
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Yang, C., Wang, L., Cheng, SJ. et al. Nest defenses and egg recognition of yellow-bellied prinia against cuckoo parasitism. Naturwissenschaften 101, 727–734 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-014-1209-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-014-1209-8