Brood Parasitism in Birds: Stra

Author(s): Robert B. Payne

Source: BioScience, Vol. 48, No
Published by: Oxford University
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 Brood P
Stra
Whydo bird

B irds are well known for their

parental care, patiently incu-
bating their eggs and then
bringing food to their young until
they are old enough to look after
themselves. Certain birds, known as
"brood parasites," however, lay their
eggs in the nests of other birds and
have no social family life with their
own offspring. Obligate brood para-
sites, such as some cowbirds and
cuckoos, give no care to their own
young, depending entirely on other
species to hatch and care for their
young. By contrast, facultative brood
parasites, including a number of other
cuckoos, colonial swallows, and
weavers, occasionally lay their eggs
in the nests of their own or other
species but usually rear their own
young. In both cases, female para-
sites may remove the eggs of the
host, while the young parasites may
kill the host young or compete with
them for care. Care that the hosts
provide to the young parasites is care
denied to their own young, with the
result that being parasitized often
has a detrimental effect on the repro-
ductive success of the nesting hosts
and may affect their population num-
bers as well.
Brood parasitism is of interest to
biologists for a number of reasons.
RobertB. Payneis a professorof zoology
in the Departmentof Biologyand curator
of birdsat the Museumof Zoology, Uni-
versityof Michigan,AnnArbor,MI48109-
1079. He has watched brood parasitic
birdsfor 20 yearsin Michigan,on 17 field
expeditionsin Africa, and for three field
seasons in western Australia. ? 1998
AmericanInstituteof BiologicalSciences.
Parasitismin
angers
in the N

dsrearyoung thatare no

Robert B. Payne

Observationsof brood
parasiticbirds and
their hosts suggest
how evolutionand
naturalselectionmight
be takingplace
First, this lifestyle is so different from
the norm of avian family care that it
demands an explanation in terms of
adaptation and evolution. Second,
as in other host-parasite interactions,
the close biological associations of
brood parasites with their hosts set
the ecological stage for "coevolu-
tion," which is in a broad sense the
development of adaptations in one
species in response to a trait of an-
other and which may be reciprocal in
an "evolutionary arms race" (Davies
and Brooke 1988, 1989, Rothstein
1990). Avian parasites have evolved
special traits to gain parental care
from their hosts, while the hosts have
evolved traits to avoid or reject the
parasites before they have done their
damage. How the hosts respond to
their parasites over evolutionary
time, however, depends on the im-
pact of brood parasitism on their
breeding success. For example, hosts
may accept a parasite egg in their
nest if the costs of defending against
the strangers that affect their nesting
success, such as damaging their own
egg in an effort to clean their nest or
even removing their own egg in er-