Why cuckoos remove host eggs: Biting eggs facilitates faster parasitic egg‐laying

Author:

Wang Longwu1ORCID,Zhao Huahua1ORCID,Yan Hanlin2ORCID,Feeney William E.34ORCID,Liang Wei2ORCID

Affiliation:

1. School of Life Sciences Guizhou Normal University Guiyang China

2. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Ecology of Tropical Islands, Key Laboratory of Tropical Animal and Plant Ecology of Hainan Province, College of Life Sciences Hainan Normal University Haikou China

3. Doñana Biological Station (CSIC) Sevilla Spain

4. Department of Biosciences Durham University Durham UK

Abstract

AbstractBrood parasitism by cuckoos relies on manipulating hosts to raise their offspring and has evolved stunning adaptations to aid in their deception. The fact that cuckoos usually but not always, remove one or two host eggs while laying their eggs has been a longstanding focus of intensive research. However, the benefit of this behavior remains elusive. Moreover, the recently proposed help delivery hypothesis, predicting that egg removal by cuckoos may decrease the egg‐laying duration in the parasitism process caused by biting action, lacks experimental verification. Therefore, in this study, we examined the effects of egg removal/biting on the egg‐laying speed in the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) to experimentally test this hypothesis. We compared the duration of cuckoo egg‐laying in empty nests, nests with host eggs, and nests with artificial blue stick models to test whether cuckoos biting an egg/stick can significantly hasten the egg‐laying speed than no biting action. Our results showed that biting an egg or an object is associated with cuckoos laying approximately 37% faster than when they do not bite an egg or an object. This study provides the first experimental evidence for the help delivery hypothesis and demonstrates that when cuckoos bite eggs or other objects in the nest, they lay eggs more quickly and thereby avoid suffering the hosts' injurious attack.

Funder

National Natural Science Foundation of China

Natural Science Foundation of Guizhou Province

Publisher

Wiley

Subject

Nature and Landscape Conservation,Ecology,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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