Light matters: Nest illumination alters egg rejection behavior in a cavity-nesting bird

Canchao Yang; Anders Pape Møller; Wei Liang

doi:10.1016/j.avrs.2022.100016

Avian Research 2022, 13(1): 100016 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avrs.2022.100016

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Open Access | Issue | Published: 02 March 2022

Light matters: Nest illumination alters egg rejection behavior in a cavity-nesting bird

Show Author's Information Hide Author's Information Canchao Yang^{^a}, Anders Pape Møller^{^b}, Wei Liang^{^a}(

)

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

Ecologie Systématique Evolution, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91405, Orsay Cedex, France

Keywords:

Egg rejection, Brood parasitism, Cryptic egg, Luminance manipulation, Nest light condition

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Yang C, Møller AP, Liang W. Light matters: Nest illumination alters egg rejection behavior in a cavity-nesting bird. Avian Research, 2022, 13(1): 100016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avrs.2022.100016

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Abstract

Egg discrimination by cavity-nesting birds that build nests under dim light conditions was presumed to depend on nest luminance, although this hypothesis has rarely been tested. Tests of egg discrimination ability by cavity-nesting tits under dim light conditions may reveal the selection pressure from brood parasitism that they encounter under natural interactions. We manipulated the intensity of luminance of nests of the Green-backed Tit (Parus monticolus), a potential cuckoo host that possesses a strong discrimination ability of non-mimetic foreign eggs. We performed experiments to test their egg discrimination ability under different light conditions. Our results showed that Green-backed Tits discriminate against non-mimetic foreign eggs under normal light conditions in nest boxes, and this ability persisted at nest luminance as low as 4.78 ± 1.31 lux that is several times lower than normal luminance (38.11 ± 24.02 lux). However, egg discrimination by Green-backed Tits disappeared when nest luminance was reduced to a minimum of 0.35 ± 0.15 lux. The latter value represents total darkness for humans. The present study shows that nest luminance plays a key role in egg discrimination by Green-backed Tits that build nests under dim light conditions. This study provides strong experimental evidence for nest illumination altering egg rejection behavior in cavity-nesting birds.

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About this article

Light matters: Nest illumination alters egg rejection behavior in a cavity-nesting bird

Show Author's information Hide Author's Information Canchao Yang^{^a}, Anders Pape Møller^{^b}, Wei Liang^{^a}(

)

Ecologie Systématique Evolution, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91405, Orsay Cedex, France

Abstract

Keywords: Egg rejection, Brood parasitism, Cryptic egg, Luminance manipulation, Nest light condition

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Received: 09 October 2021

Accepted: 18 January 2022

Published: 02 March 2022

Issue date: March 2022

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Kuankuoshui National Nature Reserve for their help and cooperation, and Yan Cai for her assistance during fieldwork. This work was supported by the Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 320CXTD437 and 2019RC189 to CY) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31772453 and 31970427 to WL).

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This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).