Zhong Guo, Wan Guixia, Wang Longwu, Liang Wei
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Ecology of Tropical Islands, College of Life Sciences Hainan Normal University Haikou China.
School of Life Sciences Guizhou Normal University Guiyang China.
Ecol Evol. 2025 Jan 31;15(2):e70904. doi: 10.1002/ece3.70904. eCollection 2025 Feb.
Egg retrieval behavior in hosts within avian brood parasitism systems was found to be regulated by the motivation to reject parasitic eggs. However, due to the limitations in the research systems, there is a lack of effective validation regarding the adaptation mechanisms of cuckoo hosts to the conflict between retrieving their own eggs outside the nest and rejecting parasitic eggs. This study uses Daurian redstarts (), a secondary cavity-nesting host parasitized by common cuckoos (), to verify the adaptive decision-making of the host between egg retrieval and egg rejection by simulating the occurrence of eggs outside the nest. The results showed that Daurian redstarts ignored 60.6% of highly mimetic conspecific eggs, with a retrieval rate of only 18.2%. Additionally, Daurian redstarts rejected 21.2% of conspecific eggs. However, non-mimetic budgerigar () and white model eggs were more likely to be directly rejected (75% and 86.4%, respectively) with no retrieval events. Our findings suggest that egg retrieval behavior in Daurian redstarts is likely influenced by the cognitive process of rejecting parasitic eggs, leading to occasional over-identification and difficulty in decision-making between egg retrieval and egg rejection, especially in the context of conflicting motivations.
在鸟类巢寄生系统中，宿主的取卵行为被发现是由拒绝寄生卵的动机所调节的。然而，由于研究系统的局限性，对于杜鹃宿主在巢外取回自己的卵与拒绝寄生卵之间的冲突的适应机制，缺乏有效的验证。本研究使用被普通杜鹃寄生的次生洞巢宿主——白眉歌鸫，通过模拟巢外卵的出现来验证宿主在取卵和拒卵之间的适应性决策。结果表明，白眉歌鸫忽略了60.6%的高度拟态同种卵，取回率仅为18.2%。此外，白眉歌鸫拒绝了21.2%的同种卵。然而，非拟态的虎皮鹦鹉卵和白色模型卵更有可能被直接拒绝（分别为75%和86.4%），没有取回事件。我们的研究结果表明，白眉歌鸫的取卵行为可能受到拒绝寄生卵的认知过程的影响，导致偶尔的过度识别以及在取卵和拒卵之间难以决策，尤其是在动机冲突的情况下。
