Egg recognition and nestling discrimination in the Crested Myna(Acridotheres cristatellus):Size matters  

作　　者：Jinmei Liu Fangfang Zhang Yuran Liu Wei Liang 

机构地区：[1]Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Ecology of Tropical Islands,Key Laboratory of Tropical Animal and Plant Ecology of Hainan Province,College of Life Sciences,Hainan Normal University,Haikou,571158,China

出　　处：《Avian Research》2023年第3期492-498,共7页鸟类学研究（英文版）

基　　金：supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.31970427 and 32270526 to WL);supported by the specific research fund of The Innovation Platform for Academicians of Hainan Province

摘　　要：Most studies exploring abilities of hosts to detect brood parasitism are based on detecting colour and/or pattern differences among parasitic and host eggs or nestlings,while only few were focused on size differences.True recognition and recognition by discordancy are used to explain cognitive mechanisms of host egg recognition;however,only a few studies have found that hosts use recognition by discordancy.This study investigated:1)whether egg and nestling recognitions in the Crested Myna(Acridotheres cristatellus) are based on size cues;2)whether the egg cognitive mechanism is recognition by discordancy based on size cues;and 3) whether the longer the experiment time,the higher the egg recognition rate.Our results showed that the Crested Myna uses egg or nestling size as a recognition cue while the egg and nestling colour and patterning are not associated with egg or nestling rejection,thus the cognitive mechanism of egg recognition in the Crested Myna is recognition by discordancy based on egg size cues.Furthermore,there is a rejection delay in time of egg rejection behaviour of the Crested Myna.Therefore,we suggest that the periodicity of egg rejection experiments could be appropriately extended,especially for species with relatively low egg recognition ability.

关 键 词：Discordancy recognition Egg rejection Nest sanitation behaviour Nestling discrimination Rejection delay 

分 类 号：Q958[生物学—动物学]