Habitat-dependent call divergence in the common cuckoo: is it a potential signal for assortative mating?

Fuisz, Tibor István; Kort, Selvino R. de

doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.0487

Cited by 30 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Hence, the corn bunting cuckoo could partly be isolated by time of breeding from the two other races. Furthermore, a recent study discovered that cuckoo males from distant populations from the same habitat type had more similar vocal calls than those of nearby populations from different habitats [45]. Hence, if females prefer the call of male cuckoos from their own habitat, non-random mating may result.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic differentiation among sympatric cuckoo host races: males matter

et al. 2010

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Generalist parasites regularly evolve host-specific races that each specialize on one particular host species. Many host-specific races originate from geographically structured populations where local adaptations to different host species drive the differentiation of distinct races. However, in sympatric populations where several host races coexist, gene flow could potentially disrupt such host-specific adaptations. Here, we analyse genetic differentiation among three sympatrically breeding host races of the brood-parasitic common cuckoo, Cuculus canorus. In this species, host-specific adaptations are assumed to be controlled by females only, possibly via the female-specific W-chromosome, thereby avoiding that gene flow via males disrupts local adaptations. Although males were more likely to have offspring in two different host species (43% versus 7%), they did not have significantly more descendants being raised outside their putative foster species than females (9% versus 2%). We found significant genetic differentiation for both biparentally inherited microsatellite DNA markers and maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA markers. To our knowledge, this is the first study that finds significant genetic differentiation in biparentally inherited markers among cuckoo host-specific races. Our results imply that males also may contribute to the evolution and maintenance of the different races, and hence that the genes responsible for egg phenotype may be found on autosomal chromosomes rather than the female-specific W-chromosome as previously assumed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic differentiation among sympatric cuckoo host races: males matter

et al. 2010

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“…Cuckoos call to attract a mate [18]. Upon hearing a cuckoo call, a host should increase vigilance and other anti-parasite behaviours to thwart the cuckoo from successfully fledging [7,15].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Females that experience threat are better teachers

2014

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Superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) females use an incubation call to teach their embryos a vocal password to solicit parental feeding care after hatching. We previously showed that high call rate by the female was correlated with high call similarity in fairy-wren chicks, but not in cuckoo chicks, and that parent birds more often fed chicks with high call similarity. Hosts should be selected to increase their defence behaviour when the risk of brood parasitism is highest, such as when cuckoos are present in the area. Therefore, we experimentally test whether hosts increase call rate to embryos in the presence of a singing Horsfield's bronze-cuckoo (Chalcites basalis). Female fairy-wrens increased incubation call rate when we experimentally broadcast cuckoo song near the nest. Embryos had higher call similarity when females had higher incubation call rate. We interpret the findings of increased call rate as increased teaching effort in response to a signal of threat.

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“…Male cuckoo calls comprise of two elements ( Fig. 1) and we manually separated each element, which is a continuous signal in the spectrogram, following the procedure used in previous studies (see Fuisz and de Kort 2007;Wei et al 2015;Zsebők et al 2017). We then automatically measured each element: firstly, we used Avisoft-SASLab Pro software to automatically search the maximum amplitude in each element, and then determine the start and end points of each element at approximately 16 dB lever lower than the maximum amplitude.…”

Section: Sound Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of vocal individuality in male cuckoos using different analytical techniques

Xia

Lloyd

et al. 2017

Avian Res

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Background: Individuality in vocalizations may provide an effective tool for surveying populations of the Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) but there remains few data on which technique to use to identify individuality. In this research, we compared the within-and between-individual variation in cuckoo calls using two different analytical methods, and discuss the feasibility of using call individuality to count male cuckoos within a population. Methods:We recorded vocalization from 13 males, and measured 15 spectro-temporal variables for each call. The majority of these call variables (n = 12) have greater variation between individuals than within individual. We first calculated the similarity (Pearson's R) for each paired calls in order to find a threshold that could distinguish calls emitted from the same or different males, and then counted the number of males based on this distinction. Second, we used the more widely accepted technique of discriminant function analysis (DFA) to identify individual male cuckoos, and compared the correct rate of classifying individuals between the two analytical methods.Results: Similarity of paired calls from the same male was significantly higher than from different males. Under a relatively broad threshold interval, we achieved a high (>90%) correct rate to distinguish calls and an accurate estimate of male numbers. Based on banded males (n = 3), we found the similarity of paired calls from different days was lower when compared with paired calls from the same day, but this change did not obscure individual identification, as similarity values of paired calls from different days were still larger than the threshold used to distinguish calls from the same or different males. DFA also yielded a high rate (91.9%) of correct classification of individuals. Conclusions:Our study suggests that identifying individual vocalizations can form the basis of an appropriate survey method for counting male cuckoos within a population, provided the performance of different analytical techniques are compared.

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Habitat-dependent call divergence in the common cuckoo: is it a potential signal for assortative mating?

Cited by 30 publications

References 33 publications

Genetic differentiation among sympatric cuckoo host races: males matter

Genetic differentiation among sympatric cuckoo host races: males matter

Females that experience threat are better teachers

Identification of vocal individuality in male cuckoos using different analytical techniques

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