The Costs and Benefits of Egg Destruction by Conspecifics in Colonial Cliff Swallows

Abstract

Abstract We studied egg destruction by conspecifics in colonial Cliff Swallows (Hirundo pyrrhonota) in southwestern Nebraska. Between 8.5% and 19.6% of all nests lost at least 1 egg to an intruding conspecific. Egg destruction occurred when nests were left momentarily unattended, often during colony alarm responses. Birds that destroyed eggs maintained nests of their own, and usually nested within 75 cm of their victims. Egg destruction was not related to attempts to usurp nests. Over a third of perpetrators of egg destruction lost eggs from their own nests to conspecifics. Egg destruction occurred more often in nests initiated early in the nesting season and in nests with large clutch sizes. Egg destruction usually occurred during a victim's egg-laying or early during incubation and declined in frequency as incubation proceeded. Breeding in a colony's peak period of nesting did not afford an advantage to potential victims by diluting their chances of being victimized. Cliff Swallows seldom destroyed all of the eggs in a neighbor's clutch, usually destroying only 1 egg at a time even though other eggs were present. There was little direct evidence that egg destruction was associated with parasitic egg-laying by Cliff Swallows, but nests with egg destruction were over 3 times more likely than nests in general to have an egg physically transferred into them. The costs of egg destruction to victims were obvious, but the benefits to destroyers of eggs were not. Egg destruction is possibly a prelude to physical transfer of eggs, reducing host clutch sizes and ultimately within-brood competition among host and parasitic nestlings. Males may also benefit by destroying a female's eggs during laying, thereby causing her to continue laying and remain sexually receptive to forced extrapair copulations. Incidence of egg destruction by conspecifics increased with Cliff Swallow colony size and thus, for potential victims, represents a definite cost of coloniality.