Does landscape structure contribute to the long-term maintenance of generalized parasitism in cowbirds?  

景观格局对牛鹂泛性寄生的长期维持有影响么?(英文)

作　　者：Scott ROBINSON Wendy SCHELSKY Jeffrey HOOVER 

机构地区：[1]美国佛罗里达大学自然历史博物馆 [2]美国伊利诺斯大学草原研究所

出　　处：《Chinese Birds》2013年第1期31-38,共8页中国鸟类（英文版）

摘　　要：Unlike most brood parasites, several species of cowbird (Molothrus) are generalists that parasitize multiple host species across their range and within the same communities; likewise, there is little evidence that individuals within a population specialize on host species. This situation has variously been attributed to the recency of cowbird evolution (the 'evolutionary lag' hypothesis) or to hidden costs of rejection by hosts (the 'equilibrium' hypothesis). Both hypotheses have some support as cowbirds are indeed a relatively young clade compared with more specialized cuckoos and cowbirds are capable of sophisticated behaviors such as retaliation against rejection ('mafia' behaviors) that would select for acceptance of cowbird eggs. Nevertheless, many species in the Americas have evolved specialized defenses against cowbird parasitism, almost all of which live in more open habitats (e. g., grasslands, shrublands, riparian strips), which indicates that coevolutionary processes can operate in ways that select for host defenses in spite of cowbird counterdefenses. We propose that the structure of landscapes in North America may explain why forest-nesting birds lack defenses against parasitism and reinforce the long-term maintenance of generalized brood parasitism in cowbirds. Because cowbirds require open habitats in which to feed, they are rare or absent in large forest tracts, which dominate much of the forest cover of the Americas. These tracts act as 'source habitats' that produce surplus young that recolonize populations in smaller, fragmented forest patches in which rates of both cowbird parasitism and nest predation are very high ('sink' habitats). Evolution of antiparasite adaptations would be very slow in this situation because most hosts are produced in areas where there is little or no cowbird parasitism. In addition, the interplay of host breeding dispersal, source-sink metapopulation dynamics, and fragmented forest habitat could further deter the evolution of host defenses against parasitism. Therefor与大多数巢寄生鸟类不同,一些牛鹂(Molothrus spp.)可以广泛寄生于其分布区内的以及同一群落内的多种宿主;也没有证据表明,同一种群内的寄生个体对宿主物种有专一性。对此,进化滞后假说认为,与其他专性寄生的杜鹃和牛鹂相比,泛性寄生牛鹂是新近才进化的一支;而进化平衡假说则认为,由于寄生牛鹂的"黑手党"效应,宿主识别和拒绝牛鹂寄生卵的代价太大。然而,北美的许多宿主鸟类已进化出特定的反寄生防御行为,这些鸟类几乎都栖息在开阔地带,如草地、灌丛和溪流边。我们认为,北美鸟类生境的景观格局,对长期维持牛鹂的泛性寄生非常重要,同时也很好地解释了为什么北美森林宿主鸟类没有进化出反寄生行为。寄生性的牛鹂需要开阔草地觅食,因而很少见于森林。森林作为"源栖息地"产生的许多宿主,仅由于一些个体的扩散才进入寄生率和捕食风险都较高的片段化森林斑块,即"汇栖息地"。如此,宿主的反寄生行为的进化将非常缓慢,因为大部分个体都来自牛鹂寄生率很低的生境。此外,生境片段化、宿主繁殖扩散和集合种群的动态变化也进一步阻止了宿主反寄生行为的进化。只要北美大片的森林景观依然存在,这种状况就能持续,森林鸟类宿主对牛鹂寄生的反寄生行为就无法快速进化,反过来,牛鹂的泛性寄生也就得以维持。

关 键 词：brood parasitism COWBIRD forest fragmentation geographic mosaic theory of coevolution nest predation source-sink metapopulation dynamics 

分 类 号：Q958[生物学—动物学]