Sexual Imprinting and the Origin of Obligate Brood Parasitism in Birds

We discuss two pathways along which obligate brood parasitism (OBP) may evolve and examine some of the critical steps that must be passed by letting great titsParus majorbe reared by blue titsParus caeruleusin a field experiment. The cross‐fostered chicks survived well in blue tit nests, but their l...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American naturalist 2001-10, Vol.158 (4), p.354-367
Main Authors: Slagsvold, Tore, Hansen, Bo T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal behavior
Animal reproduction
Bird nesting
Birds
Brood parasitism
Chicks
Eggs
Evolution
Female animals
Male animals
Mating behavior
Obligate parasites
Parasites
Parus caeruleus
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We discuss two pathways along which obligate brood parasitism (OBP) may evolve and examine some of the critical steps that must be passed by letting great titsParus majorbe reared by blue titsParus caeruleusin a field experiment. The cross‐fostered chicks survived well in blue tit nests, but their local recruitment and reproductive success was much lower than that of controls. The effect was strongest when great tits grew up with siblings of the host species rather than with conspecific siblings in blue tit nests. The low success seemed to be caused by misimprinting because the cross‐fostered birds behaved like blue tits in several aspects (species association, alarm calls, and aggressive response by resident females to caged intruders). Some birds of both sexes were apparently so strongly imprinted that they did not attract or accept a social mate of their own species. We conclude that imprinting may be necessary for OBP to evolve in birds because the parasite must be attracted to the nests of the host species to add eggs and thereby continue the parasitic life cycle. However, strong imprinting may also prevent OBP from occurring if parasitic offspring seek a mate from the host species.
ISSN:0003-0147
1537-5323
DOI:10.1086/321994