Study
Advances in the study of coevolution between avian brood parasites and their hosts
Feeney, W. E.; Welbergen, J. A.; Langmore, N. E.
Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 2014
Synthesises work on avian brood parasitism across independently evolved parasitic lineages, covering defences at each stage — nest defence, egg rejection, chick rejection — and the parasite adaptations that answer them.
- Studied in
- Aves
- Sample size
- review across brood-parasitic lineages and host systems
Host defences and parasite counter-adaptations are documented at several stages of the breeding cycle, and which stage carries the arms race differs between systems. Chick rejection, long thought absent, is now documented in several hosts.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Brood parasitism is best understood as an arms race running across the whole breeding cycle rather than as a contest over eggs alone.
How NatureHQ reads it
Used here to keep the famous European system from standing in for the phenomenon. Brood parasitism has arisen independently many times, the defences differ between systems, and the generalisation that hosts never reject chicks turns out to be a statement about which hosts were studied.
- A review; the strength of evidence varies considerably between the systems it covers.
- Coverage is uneven, with far more work on a few well-studied hosts than on the rest.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Brood parasitism
Hosts reject eggs that do not match theirs, and accept ones that do. That pressure is what produces cuckoo eggs resembling a particular host’s — and it can be tested by putting model eggs in real nests.
Brood parasitism
The same host that ejects a slightly mismatched egg will feed a chick many times its own size. The asymmetry is real, and chick rejection does exist in some hosts — so it is not a hard limit.
Published by: Annual ReviewsPublished in an Annual Reviews journal.
doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-120213-091603
Checked against Crossref on 2026-09-28, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-09-03.