ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2023
Experimental evidence that cuckoos choose host nests following an egg matching strategy.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Double Parasitism by Two Cuckoo Gentes in a Daurian Redstart Nest.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Host personality and seasonal parasitism risk do not account for egg rejection behavior in the azure-winged magpie.International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2025Article
- Asian koel rapidly locates host breeding in novel nest sites.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Brood parasitism and egg recognition in three bunting hosts of the cuckoos.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Differences in the costs and benefits of choosiness may explain variation in cuckoo egg-matching strategy: a reply to Wang and Liang (2023).Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Random egg laying in host nests, rather than egg-matching, explains patterns of cuckoo parasitism: a comment on ZhangProceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Experimental evidence that cuckoos choose host nests following an egg matching strategy.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The arms race between brood parasites and their hosts provides a classic model to study coevolution. Hosts often reject the parasitic egg, and brood parasites should therefore select host nests in which the colour of the eggs best matches that of their own. Although this hypothesis has received some support, direct experimental evidence is still lacking. Here, we report on a study of Daurian redstarts, which show a distinct egg-colour dimorphism, with females laying either blue or pink eggs. Redstarts are often parasitized by common cuckoos, which lay light blue eggs. First, we showed that cuckoo eggs were more similar in spectral reflectance to the blue than to the pink redstart egg morph. Second, we report that the natural parasitism rate was higher in blue than in pink host clutches. Third, we performed a field experiment in which we presented a dummy clutch of each colour morph adjacent to active redstart nests. In this set-up, cuckoos almost always chose to parasitize a blue clutch. Our results demonstrate that cuckoos actively choose redstart nests in which the egg colour matches the colour of their own eggs. Our study thus provides direct experimental evidence in support of the egg matching hypothesis.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.