Persistence of Host Defence Behaviour in the Absence of Avian Brood
Downloaded from http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/ on February 12, 2015 Biol. Lett. (2011) 7, 670–673 selection is renewed, and therefore may accelerate an doi:10.1098/rsbl.2011.0268 evolutionary response to the selection pressure. Published online 14 April 2011 We examined the extent to which a behavioural Animal behaviour defence persists in the absence of selection from avian brood parasitism. The interactions between avian brood parasites and their hosts are ideal for Persistence of host determining the fate of adaptations once selection has been relaxed, owing to shifting distributions of defence behaviour in the hosts and parasites [5,6] or the avoidance of well- defended hosts by parasites [7,8]. Host defences such absence of avian brood as rejection of parasite eggs may be lost in the absence parasitism of selection if birds reject their oddly coloured eggs [9,10], but are more likely to be retained because Brian D. Peer1,2,3,*, Michael J. Kuehn2,4, these behaviours may never be expressed in circum- Stephen I. Rothstein2 and Robert C. Fleischer1 stances other than parasitism [2,3]. Whether host 1Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics, defences persist in the absence of brood parasitism is Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, critical to long-term avian brood parasite–host coevolu- Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, MRC 5503, Washington, tion. If defences decline quickly, brood parasites can DC 20013-7012, USA alternate between well-defended hosts and former 2Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA hosts that have lost most of their defences, owing to the 3Department of Biological Sciences, Western Illinois University, Macomb, costs of maintaining them once parasitism has ceased, IL 61455, USA 4 or follow what has been termed the ‘coevolutionary Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, 439 Calle San Pablo, cycles’ model of host–brood parasite coevolution [3].
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