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Birds use eggshell UV reflectance when recognizing non-mimetic parasitic eggs

SYSNO ASEP	0453785
Document Type	J - Journal Article
R&D Document Type	Journal Article
Subsidiary J	Článek ve WOS
Title	Birds use eggshell UV reflectance when recognizing non-mimetic parasitic eggs
Author(s)	Šulc, Michal (UBO-W)_{RID, ORCID, SAI} Procházka, Petr (UBO-W)_{RID, ORCID, SAI} Čapek, Miroslav (UBO-W)_{RID, ORCID, SAI} Honza, Marcel (UBO-W)_{RID, SAI, ORCID}
Number of authors	4
Source Title	Behavioral Ecology. - : Oxford University Press - ISSN 1045-2249 Roč. 27, č. 2 (2016), s. 677-684
Number of pages	8 s.
Language	eng - English
Country	US - United States
Keywords	brood parasitism ; common cuckoo ; egg recognition ; Eurasian reed warbler ; mimicry ; parasitic egg ; ultraviolet (UV) reflectance
Subject RIV	EG - Zoology
R&D Projects	IAA600930903 GA AV ČR - Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (AV ČR)
	GAP506/12/2404 GA ČR - Czech Science Foundation (CSF)
Institutional support	UBO-W - RVO:68081766
UT WOS	000375398800043
EID SCOPUS	84964691909
DOI	10.1093/beheco/arv206
Annotation	Brood parasitism generally has detrimental effect on host fitness. To avoid the negative consequences of brood parasitism, hosts have often evolved an effective counter-adaptation—recognition and rejection of parasitic eggs. Because eggshells of the Eurasian reed warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) and its brood parasite, the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), differ significantly in their ultraviolet (UV) reflectance, one would expect that the ability of the hosts to see UV light will play an important role in recognition and rejection of parasitic eggs. To test this assumption, we performed 3 sets of experiments differing in the level of mimicry of the parasitic egg. In the first 2 experiments, we parasitized host nests by conspecific eggs (either own or from other females with perfect and good mimicry, respectively) coated either with a UV blocker (completely reducing UV reflectance of the eggshell) or with Vaseline as a control treatment. Although the UV blocker significantly decreased eggshell UV reflectance, hosts accepted most of these conspecific eggs and the type of coating did not significantly affect the probability of rejection. In the third experiment, we parasitized clutches with 2 types of non-mimetic eggs differing only in UV reflectance (UV− and UV+). We found that hosts rejected UV+ eggs at a significantly higher rate than UV− eggs, probably due to their lower mimicry in the UV spectrum. Here, we demonstrated that hosts use UV signals during egg recognition. Moreover, we suggest that such signals may play a more important role when the parasitic egg is non-mimetic rather than mimetic, when hosts can use additional cues, such as spotting pattern.
Workplace	Institute of Vertebrate Biology
Contact	Hana Slabáková, slabakova@ivb.cz, Tel.: 543 422 524
Year of Publishing	2017

Number of the records: 1