AI Article Synopsis
- Brood parasites like common cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, typically early in their host's egg-laying to ensure their eggs hatch first.
- In contrast, gray bushchats often abandon their nests when they detect cuckoo eggs, but they do so primarily in the early stages of laying, leaving them vulnerable during later stages.
- This study provides experimental evidence that gray bushchats use nest desertion as an anti-parasitic strategy, showing that their decision is influenced by factors related to when they are laying their own eggs.
Article Abstract
Studies have shown that brood parasites lay their eggs early in the egg-laying sequence of their hosts, providing them with the advantage of earlier hatching. However, common cuckoos () appear to parasitize the nests of gray bushchat () during the late egg-laying stage. The bushchat often abandons parasitized nests in the early stages, but not in the late egg-laying stages, thus favoring late egg-laying by cuckoos. In this study, four experiments were conducted to determine whether gray bushchats employ a nest desertion strategy targeted at cuckoo parasitism. The results showed that nest desertion was significantly correlated with parasitism cues and occurred mainly during the hosts' early egg-laying stage. Our study provides the first experimental evidence that nest desertion is an anti-parasitic strategy used by hosts in response to cuckoos. Additionally, our experiments demonstrated that the nest desertion is influenced by the trade-offs of investments in different egg-laying stages.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10641250 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.108156 | DOI Listing |
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