Virulent brood parasites refrain from arduous parental care, often kill host progeny and inflict rearing costs upon their hosts. Quantifying the magnitude of such costs across the whole period of care (from incubation through to parasite fledgling independence) is essential for understanding the selection pressures on hosts to evolve antiparasitic defences. Despite the central importance of such costs for our understanding of coevolutionary dynamics, they have not yet been comprehensively quantified in any host of any avian brood parasite. We quantified parasite-rearing costs in common redstarts Phoenicurus phoenicurus raising either parasitic common cuckoo Cuculus canorus or their own chicks throughout the complete breeding cycle, and used multiple cost parameters for each breeding stage: incubation, brooding and feeding effort; length of parental/host care; parent/host body condition; and heterophil/lymphocyte ratio (stress-level indicator). Contrary to traditional assumptions, rearing the parasite per se was not associated with overall higher physiological or physical costs to hosts above the natural levels imposed by efforts to rear their own progeny. The low parasite-rearing costs imposed on hosts may, in part, explain the low levels of known host counter-defences in this unusually frequently parasitized cuckoo host.

• Keywords
• brood parasitism, coevolution, costs,
• MeSH
• Nesting Behavior * MeSH
• Host-Parasite Interactions * MeSH
• Birds physiology   MeSH
• Songbirds parasitology   MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Check Tag
• Animals MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
• Geographicals
• Finland MeSH

Evolutionary arms-races between avian brood parasites and their hosts have typically resulted in some spectacular adaptations, namely remarkable host ability to recognize and reject alien eggs and, in turn, sophisticated parasite egg mimicry. In a striking contrast to hosts sometimes rejecting even highly mimetic eggs, the same species typically fail to discriminate against highly dissimilar parasite chicks. Understanding of this enigma is still hampered by the rarity of empirical tests - and consequently evidence - for chick discrimination. Recent work on Australian host-parasite systems (Gerygone hosts vs. Chalcites parasites), increased not only the diversity of hosts showing chick discrimination, but also discovered an entirely novel host behavioural adaptation. The hosts do not desert parasite chicks (as in all previously reported empirical work) but physically remove living parasites from their nests. Here, I briefly discuss these exciting findings and put them in the context of recent empirical and theoretical work on parasite chick discrimination. Finally, I review factors responsible for a relatively slow progress in this research area and suggest most promising avenues for future research.

• Publication type
• Editorial MeSH