Patterns and coevolutionary consequences of repeated brood parasitism
- 7 August 2004
- journal article
- Published by The Royal Society in Proceedings Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences
- Vol. 271 (suppl_5), S317-20
- https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2004.0168
Abstract
The absence of adaptive host responses to virulent parasites and pathogens is paradoxical. We explored the theoretical possibility that the evolution of antiparasitic egg-ejection strategies was delayed by avian hosts' lifetime experiences with brood parasitism. An analytical model indicated that individual hosts' repeated exposure to parasitism decreased the relative benefits of learning-based rejecter strategies when parasitism was particularly costly. Because brood parasitic brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) and their hosts are typically philopatric across breeding attempts, spatially and temporally non-random patterns of parasitism may contribute to low levels of observed egg-ejection by vulnerable cowbird hosts. In support, we found that in three populations of two host species individual females experienced repeated cowbird parasitism during their lifetimes. We propose that repeated parasitism contributes to counterintuitive patterns of coevolutionary dynamics in spatially structured host-parasite populations.Keywords
This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit:
- RAPID EVOLUTION OF A SEXUALLY SELECTED TRAIT FOLLOWING POPULATION ESTABLISHMENT IN A NOVEL HABITATEvolution, 2004
- COEVOLUTION OF AN AVIAN HOST AND ITS PARASITIC CUCKOOEvolution, 2003
- Escalation of a coevolutionary arms race through host rejection of brood parasitic youngNature, 2003
- Geographic structure and dynamics of coevolutionary selectionNature, 2002
- Nest desertion and cowbird parasitism: evidence for evolved responses and evolutionary lagAnimal Behaviour, 2000
- Species and sex differences in hippocampus size in parasitic and non-parasitic cowbirdsNeuroReport, 1996