Can intraspecific brood parasitism be detected using egg morphology only?
(2004) In Journal of Avian Biology 35(4). p.360-364- Abstract
- Intraspecific brood parasites lay their eggs in the nests of conspecifics. There are a number of methods for detecting intraspecific brood parasitism (IBP) in birds based on egg morphology. Here we test Eadie's (1989) method, which calculates the Euclidean distances between eggs in a given clutch in a three-dimensional space (weight, length and width). A parasitised clutch is predicted to contain an egg (or eggs) that is significantly different from the clutch's other eggs. Data from three species were analysed. Our captive zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata clutches did not include any instances of IBP, the wild jackdaw Corvus monedula data were unlikely to contain any, and for the goldeneye Bucephala clangula data set we had an... (More)
- Intraspecific brood parasites lay their eggs in the nests of conspecifics. There are a number of methods for detecting intraspecific brood parasitism (IBP) in birds based on egg morphology. Here we test Eadie's (1989) method, which calculates the Euclidean distances between eggs in a given clutch in a three-dimensional space (weight, length and width). A parasitised clutch is predicted to contain an egg (or eggs) that is significantly different from the clutch's other eggs. Data from three species were analysed. Our captive zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata clutches did not include any instances of IBP, the wild jackdaw Corvus monedula data were unlikely to contain any, and for the goldeneye Bucephala clangula data set we had an observational estimate of IBP. We simulated IBP in the zebra finch, jackdaw and goldeneye data to test whether the method reliably detects an experimentally 'parasitised' clutch. We show that the distributions of the test statistics greatly overlap in 'parasitised' and unmodified clutches, and are dependent on the clutch size. We therefore conclude that the method can only be used with caution, after calibrating it for a given population. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/135406
- author
- Ådahl, Emma LU ; Lindstrom, J ; Ruxton, G D ; Arnold, K E and Begg, T
- organization
- publishing date
- 2004
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Journal of Avian Biology
- volume
- 35
- issue
- 4
- pages
- 360 - 364
- publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000223085900010
- scopus:3543140712
- ISSN
- 0908-8857
- DOI
- 10.1111/j.0908-8857.2004.03224.x
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015. The record was previously connected to the following departments: Theoretical ecology (Closed 2011) (011006011)
- id
- 5535f53c-922a-454f-90d4-366f2c6c5d88 (old id 135406)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 12:35:09
- date last changed
- 2022-03-13 19:54:41
@article{5535f53c-922a-454f-90d4-366f2c6c5d88,
abstract = {{Intraspecific brood parasites lay their eggs in the nests of conspecifics. There are a number of methods for detecting intraspecific brood parasitism (IBP) in birds based on egg morphology. Here we test Eadie's (1989) method, which calculates the Euclidean distances between eggs in a given clutch in a three-dimensional space (weight, length and width). A parasitised clutch is predicted to contain an egg (or eggs) that is significantly different from the clutch's other eggs. Data from three species were analysed. Our captive zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata clutches did not include any instances of IBP, the wild jackdaw Corvus monedula data were unlikely to contain any, and for the goldeneye Bucephala clangula data set we had an observational estimate of IBP. We simulated IBP in the zebra finch, jackdaw and goldeneye data to test whether the method reliably detects an experimentally 'parasitised' clutch. We show that the distributions of the test statistics greatly overlap in 'parasitised' and unmodified clutches, and are dependent on the clutch size. We therefore conclude that the method can only be used with caution, after calibrating it for a given population.}},
author = {{Ådahl, Emma and Lindstrom, J and Ruxton, G D and Arnold, K E and Begg, T}},
issn = {{0908-8857}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{4}},
pages = {{360--364}},
publisher = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
series = {{Journal of Avian Biology}},
title = {{Can intraspecific brood parasitism be detected using egg morphology only?}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/2983455/624543.pdf}},
doi = {{10.1111/j.0908-8857.2004.03224.x}},
volume = {{35}},
year = {{2004}},
}