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Rejection of parasitic eggs by Yellow-bellied Prinias: importance of egg spot location

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Abstract

Characteristics of egg surfaces serve as recognition cues that allow avian hosts to detect and reject foreign eggs in brood parasitism. The blunt egg pole hypothesis suggests that the blunt egg pole is an essential signal in parasitic egg recognition. In the present study, eggs of Yellow-bellied Prinia (Prinia flaviventris) were painted with black spots at either the blunt or sharp egg pole to determine and compare the responses of different populations exposed to brood parasitism (parasitized population) or not (non-parasitized population). These results supported the above hypothesis and showed that the parasitized population displayed a higher rate of rejection of eggs with blunt pole-painted spots than with sharp pole-painted spots. In contrast, the non-parasitized population accepted all experimental eggs, which may be related to decreased egg recognition resulting from low exposure to brood parasitism.

Zusammenfassung

Entfernen der Eier von Brutparasiten durch Gelbbauchprinien: Die Bedeutung der Position von Pigmentflecken

Merkmale von Eioberflächen dienen als Erkennungssignale, die es Wirtsvögeln ermöglichen, im Fall von Brutparasitismus fremde Eier zu erkennen und zu entfernen. Die „stumpfer Eipol“ Hypothese schlägt vor, dass der stumpfe Eipol ein entscheidendes Signal für das Erkennen der Eier von Brutparasiten darstellt. In der vorliegenden Studie haben wir die Eier von Gelbbauchprinien (Prinia flaviventris) mit schwarzen Punkten bemalt, entweder am stumpfen oder am spitzen Eipol, um die Antworten der Vögel in parasitierten und nicht parasitierten Populationen zu ermitteln und vergleichen. Unsere Ergebnisse stützten die obengenannte Hypothese und zeigten, dass Gelbbauchprinien in der parasitierte Population Eier, bei denen die Flecken auf den stumpfen Eipol gemalt wurden, mit höherer Wahrscheinlichkeit entfernten als Eier mit am spitzen Eipol aufgemalten Flecken. Im Gegensatz dazu wurden in der nicht parasitierten Population alle experimentellen Eier akzeptiert, was mit verminderter Eierkennung infolge geringer Brutparasitismusgefahr zusammenhängen könnte.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Canchao Yang for help with spectral data analysis, Christine Watts for improving the English proofreading, Ian Will from the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and Aiwu Jiang, Qiuli Huang, Demeng Jiang, and Yungao Hu for their assistance with fieldwork in Guangxi and Shun-Jen Cheng in Taiwan. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 31660617 and 31960105 to LW, 31772453 and 31970427 to WL), Initial Fund Key Laboratories of Guizhou Province (no. 2011-4005), and Joint Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Karst Science Research Center of Guizhou Province (no. U1812401).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Forestry Administration of China Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Conservation in Mountainous Areas of Southwest Karst, School of Life Sciences, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang 550001, China

    Longwu Wang

  2. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Ecology of Tropical Islands, College of Life Sciences, Hainan Normal University, Haikou 571158, China

    Longwu Wang & Wei Liang

  3. Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, National Dong Hwa University, Hualien 97401, Taiwan

    Yu-Cheng Hsu

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  1. Longwu Wang
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Correspondence to Wei Liang.

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Ethical standards

The studies reported in this paper conformed to the laws in the countries in which they were performed. Experimental procedures were conducted in agreement with the Animal Research Ethics Committee of Hainan Provincial Education Centre for Ecology and Environment, Hainan Normal University (No. HNECEE-2011-005).

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Communicated by S. Bouwhuis.

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Wang, L., Hsu, YC. & Liang, W. Rejection of parasitic eggs by Yellow-bellied Prinias: importance of egg spot location. J Ornithol 161, 987–994 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-020-01789-2

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