IngentaConnect Eggshell spotting in brood parasitic shiny cowbirds (Molothrus bo...

Authors: Mahler, Bettina¹; Confalonieri, Viviana²; Lovette, Irby³; Reboreda, Juan²

Source: Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Volume 62, Number 7, May 2008 , pp. 1193-1199(7)

Publisher: Springer

Abstract:

For avian brood parasites in which individual females are host-specialists, the arms race between hosts and parasites has favored egg color polymorphism in the parasite, with female lineages laying mimetic eggs that resemble those of the host species they parasitize. Female sex-linked inheritance of egg color fosters evolutionary stability of egg polymorphism if female lineages show both consistent eggshell color and host use. This co-evolutionary relationship is unlikely to occur if individual brood parasites use different hosts or if egg color is not maternally inherited. The shiny cowbird (Molothrus bonariensis) is an extreme generalist brood parasite that shows a very high degree of egg polymorphism. We tested whether egg spotting in this species has female sex-linked inheritance. If genetic factors controlling the expression of egg spotting were present on the female-specific W chromosome, we expected co-segregation between spotting patterns and mtDNA haplotypes, as both W and mtDNA are maternally inherited. In contrast to the known maternal inheritance of spotting patterns in great tits, we found no associations between eggshell spotting and mtDNA haplotypes, which suggests that eggshell spotting is not maternally inherited in this cowbird species.

Keywords: Brood parasitism; Eggshell spotting; Molothrus bonariensis; mtDNA; Shiny cowbird

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1007/s00265-008-0548-x

Affiliations: 1: Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pabellón II Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EGA, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Email: bemahler@ege.fcen.uba.ar 2: Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pabellón II Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EGA, Buenos Aires, Argentina 3: Fuller Evolutionary Biology Program, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA

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Eggshell spotting in brood parasitic shiny cowbirds (Molothrus bonariensis) is not linked to the female sex chromosome