Cuckoos, cowbirds and hosts: adaptations, trade-offs and constraints
- 23 June 2006
- journal article
- review article
- Published by The Royal Society in Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences
- Vol. 362 (1486), 1873-1886
- https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2006.1849
Abstract
The interactions between brood parasitic birds and their host species provide one of the best model systems for coevolution. Despite being intensively studied, the parasite-host system provides ample opportunities to test new predictions from both coevolutionary theory as well as life-history theory in general. I identify four main areas that might be especially fruitful: cuckoo female gentes as alternative reproductive strategies, non-random and nonlinear risks of brood parasitism for host individuals, host parental quality and targeted brood parasitism, and differences and similarities between predation risk and parasitism risk. Rather than being a rare and intriguing system to study coevolutionary processes, I believe that avian brood parasites and their hosts are much more important as extreme cases in the evolution of life-history strategies. They provide unique examples of trade-offs and situations where constraints are either completely removed or particularly severe.Keywords
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