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Egg polymorphism and highly sensitive egg recognition of cross‐phenotypes in rufescent prinias Prinia rufescens as effective defenses against brood parasitism
Author(s) -
YANG Canchao,
WANG Longwu,
MØLLER Anders Pape,
LIANG Wei
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
integrative zoology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 34
ISSN - 1749-4877
DOI - 10.1111/1749-4877.12474
Subject(s) - brood parasite , biology , parasitism , cuckoo , brood , zoology , ecology , host (biology)
Whether escalating egg polymorphism increases the efficiency to reduce the fitness costs of brood parasitism is not supported by empirical studies. Rufescent prinias ( Prinia rufescens ) laying tetramorphic eggs are highly sensitive to conspecific foreign eggs with different phenotypes that they reject perfectly at 100%, and suffer only 1.4% of plaintive cuckoo ( Cacomantis merulinus ) parasitism. Our study provided empirical evidence showing that escalation of egg polymorphism in hosts increases their fitness because it reduces successful cuckoo parasitism rate.