Brood parasitism by starlings experimentally forced to desert their nests
Energetic constraints and parental care: Is corticosterone indicative of energetic costs of incubation in a precocial bird?
Abstract Suppression of the adrenocortical response (e.g., corticosterone release) to an acute stressor is a physiological adjustment thought to decrease the likelihood of avian parents abandoning their nests. However, some periods of parental care, like incubation, are energetically costly, thus corticosterone could increase during these stages to allow incubating parents to utilize energy reserves. Wood […]
The exaggerated begging behaviour of an obligate avian brood parasite is shared with a nonparasitic close relative
Offspring signalling models predict that the begging displays of obligate brood parasites are more intense than nonparasitic species because parasitic young are never reared by their genetic parents and often compete against unrelated host young during development. The brown-headed cowbird, Molothrus ater, has been described as having exaggerated begging relative to nonparasitic species, but an […]
The wages of violence: mobbing by mockingbirds as a frontline defence against brood-parasitic cowbirds
For many hosts of brood-parasitic birds, their frontline of defence is to mob adult parasites that approach the nest. Mobbing is commonly interpreted as an adaptation to prevent the parasite from laying, although to date evidence of this is indirect or anecdotal. We investigated the effectiveness of mobbing by chalk-browed mockingbirds, Mimus saturninus, as a […]