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Do cuckoos choose nests of great reed warblers on the basis of host egg appearance?

journal contribution
posted on 2007-05-01, 00:00 authored by M Cherry, Andy Bennett, C Moskat
Prevailing theory assumes cuckoos lay at random among host nests within a population, although it has been suggested that cuckoos could choose large nests and relatively active pairs within host populations. We tested the hypothesis that egg matching could be improved by cuckoos choosing nests in which host eggs more closely match their own, by assessing matching and monitoring nest fate in great reed warblers naturally or experimentally parasitized by eggs of European cuckoos. A positive correlation between cuckoo and host egg visual features suggests that cuckoos do not lay at random within a population, but choose nests and this improves egg matching: naturally parasitized cuckoo eggs were more similar to host eggs as perceived by humans and as measured by spectrophotometry. Our results suggest a hitherto overlooked step in cuckoo-host evolutionary arms races, and have nontrivial implications for the common experimental practice of artificially parasitizing clutches.

History

Journal

Journal of evolutionary biology

Volume

20

Issue

3

Pagination

1218 - 1222

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell Publishing

Location

Oxford, England

ISSN

1010-061X

eISSN

1420-9101

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal