BACKGROUND Antagonistic species often interact via matching of phenotypes, and interactions between brood parasitic common cuckoos (Cuculus canorus) and their hosts constitute classic examples. The outcome of a parasitic event is often determined by the match between host and cuckoo eggs, giving rise to potentially strong associations between fitness and egg phenotype. Yet, empirical efforts ai...

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.08.022 0003-3472/© 2017 The Association for the Study of A Birds often need to distinguish their own eggs from those of others or from other objects that could be confused with their eggs. Egg recognition occurs in a variety of birds that retrieve eggs displaced from the nest. Egg recognition and rejection is also a particularly widespread defence agains...

Owing to the conspicuousness of ultraviolet (UV) colour in dark environments, natural selection might have selected UV egg coloration because it would enhance egg detectability by parents in murky nests. Here, we tested this hypothesis by using comparative and experimental approaches. First, we studied variation in egg coloration of 98 species of European passerines measured using UV-visible re...

Given the high costs of avian obligate brood parasitism, host individuals are selected to reject parasitic eggs they recognize as foreign. We show that rejection may not necessarily follow egg discrimination when selective removal of the parasitic egg is difficult. We studied egg rejection behaviour in a small host of the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus, the eastern olivaceous warbler Hippolais p...

Higher interclutch colour variation can evolve under the pressure of brood parasitism to increase the detection of parasitic eggs. Nest sanitation could be a prerequisite for the evolution of anti-parasite defence in terms of egg ejection. In this respect, we used nest sanitation behaviour as a tool to identify: i) motivation and its underlying function and, ii) which features provoke ejection ...

Abstract Egg rejection is an effective and widespread antiparasitic defense to eliminate foreign eggs from the nests of hosts brood parasitic birds. Several lines observational critical experimental evidence support a role for learning by in recognition versus own eggs; specifically, individual that have had prior or current experience with parasitism are more likely reject eggs. Here we confir...

The offspring of brood parasitic birds benefit from hatching earlier than host young. A proposed but little-known strategy to achieve this is 'internal incubation', by retaining the egg in the oviduct for an additional 24 h. To test this, we quantified the stage of embryo development at laying in four brood parasitic birds (European cuckoo, Cuculus canorus; African cuckoo, Cuculus gularis; grea...

Filtrates from nematode-parasitic fungi have been reported to be toxic to plant-parasitic nematodes. Our objective was to determine the effects of fungal filtrates on second-stage juveniles and eggs of Heterodera glycines. Eleven fungal species that were isolated from cysts extracted from a soybean field in Florida were tested on J2, and five species were tested on eggs in vitro. Each fungal sp...

Despite increasing use of molecular diagnostics in clinical parasitology laboratories, a mainstay faecal remains microscopy by capable microbiologist. With decreasing rates parasitic infection high income nations such as Australia, the opportunity to regularly see elements faeces is decreasing. At times, unusual or suspicious may be observed smears. An important skill for all conducting able de...

1. The second-stage larva of the plant parasitic nematode Heterodera rostocfaensis shows very little movement while confined to the egg; on the other hand, the larva of the closely related Meloidogyne incognita is very active 2. Using interference microscopy, it is shown that the water content of the Heterodera larva increases immediately it is liberated from the egg while that of the Meloidogy...