Great Reed Warbler singing behavior and conspicuous song structures are not nest-location cues for the Common Cuckoo

AbstractEgg rejection behaviour, as an antiparasite defence against brood parasitism was compared in two great reed warbler Acrocephalus arundinaceus populations. In central Hungary the host population lives in sympatry with the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus, and it is heavily parasitised (ca 66%). In central Greece the great reed warbler occurs in allopatry with the cuckoo, so it is not parasitised at all. Experimental parasitism with poorly mimetic (often called 'non-mimetic') artificial cuckoo eggs revealed a 100% rejection rate towards the foreign eggs in the Greek population, but the Hungarian hosts accepted 29.4% and rejected 70.6% of the model cuckoo eggs. No other rejection type than ejection was observed. The significantly higher level of rejection in Greece than in Hungary suggests that the Greek great reed warbler population is an abandoned host population of the cuckoo, which kept its egg recognition ability. A computer-based image analysis of host's clutches revealed that interclutch variation in egg colour was greater than intraclutch variation in the Hungarian population, but not in the Greek population. Spottedness of eggs were similar in both populations. Generally, a tendency for a higher interclutch variation was found in Hungary. Intraclutch variation was more similar in the two populations, but for the colour variables it showed a lower value in Hungary than in Greece. The heavy cuckoo parasitism in Hungary is suggested to be the main cause for the increased interclutch variation in relation to intraclutch variation in egg appearance among great reed warbler clutches. The high interclutch variation reduces the chance that the parasite egg's appearance matches that of the hosts', which facilitates hosts' egg discrimination.

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Heterospecific alarm-call recognition in two warbler hosts of common cuckoos

Animal Cognition ◽

10.1007/s10071-019-01307-9 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 22 (6) ◽

pp. 1149-1157 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Jiangping Yu ◽

Hailin Lu ◽

Wei Sun ◽

Wei Liang ◽

Haitao Wang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Alarm Call ◽

Alarm Calls ◽

Reed Warbler ◽

Cuculus Canorus ◽

Common Cuckoo ◽

Playback Experiments ◽

Call Recognition ◽

Accipiter Nisus ◽

Main Host ◽

The Common

Abstract Species facing similar selection pressures should recognize heterospecific alarm signals. However, no study has so far examined heterospecific alarm-call recognition in response to parasitism by cuckoos. In this study, we tested whether two sympatric host species of the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus, Oriental reed warbler Acrocephalus orientalis (ORW, main host), and black-browed reed warbler Acrocephalus bistrigiceps (BRW, rare host), could recognize each other’s alarm calls in response to cuckoos. Dummies of common cuckoo (parasite) and Eurasian sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus (predator) were used to induce and record alarm calls of the two warbler species, respectively. In the conspecific alarm-call playback experiments, ORW responded more strongly to cuckoo alarm calls than to sparrowhawk alarm calls, while BRW responded less strongly to cuckoo alarm calls than to sparrowhawk alarm calls. In the heterospecific alarm-call playback experiments, both ORW and BRW responded less strongly to cuckoo alarm calls than sparrowhawk alarm calls. BRW seemed to learn the association between parasite-related alarm calls of the ORW and the cuckoo by observing the process of ORW attacking cuckoos. In contrast, alarm calls of BRW to cuckoos were rarely recorded in most cases. BRW with low parasite pressure still developed recognition of heterospecific parasite-related alarm call. Unintended receivers in the same community should recognize heterospecific alarm calls precisely to extract valuable information.

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The common cuckoo Cuculus canorus is not locally adapted to its reed warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus host

Journal of Evolutionary Biology ◽

10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02168.x ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 314-325 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

J. M. AVILÉS ◽

J. R. VIKAN ◽

F. FOSSØY ◽

A. ANTONOV ◽

A. MOKSNES ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Reed Warbler ◽

Cuculus Canorus ◽

Common Cuckoo ◽

Acrocephalus Scirpaceus ◽

The Common

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Repeated Presentations of the Common Cuckoo Increase Nest Defense by the Eurasian Reed Warbler But Do not Induce It to Make Recognition Errors

The Condor ◽

10.1525/cond.2010.100063 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 112 (4) ◽

pp. 763-769 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Miroslav Čapek ◽

Milica Požgayová ◽

Petr Procházka ◽

Marcel Honza

Keyword(s):

Nest Defense ◽

Reed Warbler ◽

Common Cuckoo ◽

The Common ◽

Recognition Errors

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Fast and furious: host aggression modulates behaviour of brood parasites

10.1101/2020.04.27.063933 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Václav Jelínek ◽

Michal Šulc ◽

Gabriela Štětková ◽

Marcel Honza

Keyword(s):

Brood Parasitism ◽

Egg Laying ◽

Nest Defence ◽

Great Reed Warbler ◽

Acrocephalus Arundinaceus ◽

Brood Parasite ◽

Cuculus Canorus ◽

Common Cuckoo ◽

Brood Parasites ◽

The Common

ABSTRACTAvian brood parasites pose a serious threat for hosts, substantially reducing their fitness which selects for the evolution of host defences. A classic example of a host frontline defence is mobbing which frequently includes contact attacking of brood parasites. Here, we investigated how the nest defence of a very aggressive great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus) host influences the speed of egg-laying and egg-removing behaviour of its brood parasite – the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus). We video-recorded 168 brood parasitic events at 102 active host nests and found that cuckoos avoided host mobbing in only 62% of cases. If hosts spotted the cuckoo at their nests, they almost always attacked it (in 91 of 104 cases), however, such attacks only rarely and temporarily prevented cuckoos from parasitizing (11 additional cases). When attacked, cuckoos parasitized host nests significantly faster and left them immediately. However, when not attacked, cuckoos frequently stayed at or near the nest suggesting that host aggression, rather than the risk of being spotted, influences the speed of brood parasitism in this species. Further, we found that cuckoos performed egg-removing behaviour in all parasitic events without regard to host aggression. As a result, cuckoos removed at least one egg during all brood parasitism events except those when an egg slipped from their beaks and fell back into the nest (in 9 of 73 cases). This indicates that egg-removing behaviour is not costly for the common cuckoo and is an essential part of its parasitism strategy, widening understanding of this currently unexplained behaviour.

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Female common cuckoo calls dampen the mobbing intensity of great reed warbler hosts

Ethology ◽

10.1111/eth.13126 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Attila Marton ◽

Attila Fülöp ◽

Miklós Bán ◽

Márk E. Hauber ◽

Csaba Moskát

Keyword(s):

Great Reed Warbler ◽

Reed Warbler ◽

Common Cuckoo

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A host-race of the cuckoo Cuculus canorus with nestlings attuned to the parental alarm calls of the host species

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2005.3324 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 273 (1587) ◽

pp. 693-699 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

N.B Davies ◽

J.R Madden ◽

S.H.M Butchart ◽

J Rutila

Keyword(s):

Foster Parents ◽

Alarm Calls ◽

Specific Response ◽

Host Race ◽

Reed Warbler ◽

Common Cuckoo ◽

Playback Experiments ◽

Maternal Control ◽

Host Races ◽

The Common

The common cuckoo has several host-specific races, each with a distinctive egg that tends to match its host's eggs. Here, we show that the host-race specializing on reed warblers also has a host-specific nestling adaptation. In playback experiments, the nestling cuckoos responded specifically to the reed warbler's distinctive ‘churr’ alarm (given when a predator is near the nest), by reducing begging calls (likely to betray their location) and by displaying their orange-red gape (a preparation for defence). When reed warbler-cuckoos were cross-fostered and raised by two other regular cuckoo hosts (robins or dunnocks), they did not respond to the different alarms of these new foster-parents. Instead, they retained a specific response to reed warbler alarms but, remarkably, increased both calling and gaping. This suggests innate pre-tuning to reed warbler alarms, but with exposure necessary for development of the normal silent gaping response. By contrast, cuckoo chicks of another host-race specializing on redstarts showed no response to either redstart or reed warbler alarms. If host-races are restricted to female cuckoo lineages, then chick-tuning in reed warbler-cuckoos must be under maternal control. Alternatively, some host-races might be cryptic species, not revealed by the neutral genetic markers studied so far.

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Factors Affecting Reed Warbler Risk of Brood Parasitism by the Common Cuckoo

The Auk ◽

10.1093/auk/118.2.534 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 118 (2) ◽

pp. 534-538 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Alice L. Clarke ◽

Ingar J. Øien ◽

Marcel Honza ◽

Arne Moksnes ◽

Eivin RØskaft

Keyword(s):

Logistic Regression ◽

Brood Parasitism ◽

Multiple Logistic Regression Analysis ◽

Reed Warbler ◽

Common Cuckoo ◽

Host Nest ◽

Nest Parasitism ◽

Logistic Regression Models ◽

Direct View ◽

The Common

Abstract In this study we conducted a multiple logistic regression analysis of factors hypothesized to influence the risk of Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) brood parasitism by the Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) on study sites in the south-eastern part of the Czech Republic. We collected data from Common Cuckoo nesting sites surrounding two fishponds. Our logistic regression models were based on the dichotomous dependent variable, parasitism of the Reed Warbler nest, and seven independent variables. Our first model used all data available across sites and years and resulted in a final model in which the only significant contributor was the independent variable “cuckoo view,” the view of host nests from the cuckoo's vantage point in a tree. A second model was developed using data limited to sites and years with the largest sample sizes and expected to yield the most reliable results. That model resulted in three significant contributors: site, cuckoo view, and neighborhood view. In both data sets, the odds of nest parasitism were shown to increase as the view of the host nest became more direct. However, a direct view of the focal nest raised the risk of parasitism to a much greater degree than did a direct view of the neighborhood of nests. Our results provide support for a nest-exposure hypothesis of brood parasitism risk. Although our models have identified nest exposure to be the best predictor of nest parasitism in this system, work remains to unravel the potentially complex relationship among Common Cuckoos, habitat structure, and Reed Warbler hosts.

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Avifauna of meadow ecosystems in borderland areas of Lviv and Volyn Oblasts

Geo&Bio ◽

10.15407/gb2012 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2021 (20) ◽

pp. 117-134

Author(s):

Ihor Shydlovskyy ◽

◽

Oleksii Dubovyk ◽

Petro Hrynyuk ◽

Ivan Zahorodnyi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Habitat Type ◽

Bird Species ◽

Common Reed ◽

Great Reed Warbler ◽

Oxbow Lakes ◽

Common Cuckoo ◽

Yellow Wagtail ◽

Sedge Warbler ◽

Meadow Pipit ◽

The Common

Meadow ecosystems comprise a significant part of the area of Ukraine, especially in its western regions. Those ecosystems are subjects of concern today because of the active agricultural use and droughts that also threatens the animal population of meadows, including birds. Studies of meadow bird species of western Ukraine are limited to atlases, which results in a lack of precise data. This work was part of an international project on the conservation of the great snipe Gallinago media and allowed us to collect valuable data on the abundance and occurrence of meadow bird species nearby to the Polish and Belarusian borders of Ukraine — territories that are commonly ignored by Ukrainian researchers. The surveys of meadow birds conducted near the Ukrainian-Polish border in 2020 have shown that the general state of the marshes is worse compared to 2019: even close to the Western Bug river, only deep oxbow lakes were wet or contained some water, but minor lakes and wetlands of the valley were found to be dry. In total, we observed 141 bird species belonging to 17 orders. Among them, 26 were common by abundance and frequency, such as the great egret Ardea alba, the white stork Ciconia ciconia, the common quail Coturnix coturnix, the corn crake Crex crex, the northern lapwing Vanellus vanellus, the common redshank Tringa totanus, the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus, the Eurasian skylark Alauda arvensis, the meadow pipit Anthus pratensis, the western yellow wagtail Motacilla flava, the sedge warbler Acrocephalus schoenobaenus, the marsh warbler A. palustris, the great reed warbler A. arundinaceus, the common whitethroat Sylvia communis, the whinchat Saxicola rubetra, the thrush nightingale Luscinia luscinia, the common linnet Linaria cannabina, the corn bunting Emberiza calandra, the common reed bunting E. schoeniclus, and 7 more species, which were observed frequently though are not typical marshland species. We have identified the species that can be used as indicators of parameters of marsh ecosystems such as grass height (corn crake, western yellow wagtail, and sedge warbler), moisture (common redshank, common cuckoo, and the sedge and great reed warblers), and habitat type (corn crake, European bee-eater Merops apiaster, sedge warbler, common reed, and corn buntings).

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Break-down of arms race between the red-backed shrike (Lanius collurio) and common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus)

Behaviour ◽

10.1163/156853904322890843 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 141 (2) ◽

pp. 245-262 ◽

Cited By ~ 42

Author(s):

Csaba Moskát ◽

Péter Lovászi

Keyword(s):

Low Frequency ◽

Arms Race ◽

Great Reed Warbler ◽

Egg Recognition ◽

Cuculus Canorus ◽

Common Cuckoo ◽

Lanius Collurio ◽

High Aggression ◽

The Common ◽

High Level

AbstractThe red-backed shrike Lanius collurio once was parasitised by the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus in low frequency until the late 1960s in Hungary, but no case of parasitism is known from the last three or four decades. The cuckoo most probably abandoned this host species because its arms race had defeated, which may be indicated by the high level egg recognition and rejection ability of shrikes. However, mimicry of the cuckoo eggs in the last known cases of parasitism was significantly lower than between cuckoo eggs and host eggs collected from great reed warbler Acrocephalus arundinaceus nests within the same period. This suggests that red-backed shrikes won the arms race leaving no chance for cuckoos to develop better mimicry for their eggs. We tested these findings with experimentally induced parasitism using two types of real eggs: red-backed shrikes rejected 57.6% of the foreign conspecific eggs, but rejected 93.3% of the real cuckoo eggs transferred form nests of great reed warblers. This high level of rejection against real cuckoo eggs shows that there is no chance for presently occurring cuckoos to reparasitise red-backed shrikes in Hungary. Experimental eggs rejected by shrikes had lower mimicry than the eggs which were accepted, but intraclutch variation did not differ between accepters and rejecters. Hosts' aggression was significantly higher against the stuffed cuckoo than against the control species, the collared dove Streptopelia decaocto, and it was the least against female red-backed shrikes. Red-backed shrikes high aggression against cuckoo dummies also showed a highly developed antiparasite adaptation.

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