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Evolution of defences against cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) parasitism in bramblings (Fringilla montifringilla): a comparison of four populations in Fennoscandia

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Abstract

The brood parasitic common cuckoo Cuculus canorus has a history of coevolution that involves numerous passerine hosts, but today only a subset is known to be regularly parasitised in any area. In some hosts, there is significant variation in the occurrence of parasitism between populations, but still individuals in non-parasitised populations show strong antiparasite defences. In the present study we compared the strength of egg rejection of four distant Fennoscandian brambling Fringilla montifringilla populations experiencing different levels of cuckoo parasitism (0–6%). Egg rejection ability was in general very well developed and we did not find any population differences in the relationship between egg rejection probability and similarity between host and experimental parasitic eggs. Furthermore, bramblings very rarely made errors in rejection, indicating that selection against rejection behaviour is likely to be very weak. The brambling-cuckoo system therefore differs from other well studied systems which are characterised by pronounced spatial and temporal variation in the host’s level of defence. This result is unlikely to reflect independent replication of the same evolutionary trajectory because the weak breeding site tenacity of bramblings should result in an extreme amount of gene flow within the distribution area and thus strongly impede localised responses to selection. Instead, lack of geographic variation has more likely arisen because bramblings respond to selection as one evolutionary unit, and because the average parasitism pressures have been high enough in the past to cause regional fixation of rejection alleles and evolution of clutch characteristics that facilitate cost free egg recognition.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Thomas H Carlsen, Ragnar J Dahle, Roger Dahl, Arild Husby, Elina Immonen, Pål Kvello, Craig Jackson and Trine H Setsaas for contributions in data collection, Frode Fossøy for comments on the manuscript, and Anton Antonov, Åke Lindström and Erik Nyholm for various contributions. We acknowledge the support of the European Community—LAPBIAT project RITA-CT-2006-025969. JRV was also funded by Erbos foundation, IK Lykkes foundation and Nedal foundation. The experiments comply with current laws of Finland, Sweden and Norway. Thoughtful inputs from two anonymous reviewers greatly improved previous versions of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Realfagbygget, 7491, Trondheim, Norway

    Johan Reinert Vikan, Bård Gunnar Stokke, Arne Moksnes & Eivin Røskaft

  2. Department of Biology, University of Joensuu, P.O. Box 111, 80101, Joensuu, Finland

    Jarkko Rutila

  3. Finnish Forest Research Institute, Kolari Research Unit, Muoniontie 21, 95900, Kolari, Finland

    Esa Huhta

  4. Centre for Advanced Study, CAS, Drammensveien 78, 0271, Oslo, Norway

    Johan Reinert Vikan, Bård Gunnar Stokke, Arne Moksnes & Eivin Røskaft

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  1. Johan Reinert Vikan
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Correspondence to Johan Reinert Vikan.

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Vikan, J.R., Stokke, B.G., Rutila, J. et al. Evolution of defences against cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) parasitism in bramblings (Fringilla montifringilla): a comparison of four populations in Fennoscandia. Evol Ecol 24, 1141–1157 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-010-9360-y

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