Dissertation Research: Species Recognition in Brood Parasites

题目：论文研究：幼巢寄生虫的物种识别教授资助人：Paul W. Sherman学生：Mark E. Hauber大多数鸟类和哺乳动物是在家庭成员中饲养的。因此，学习兄弟姐妹和父母的特征会导致适当的物种识别。因为寄生幼虫在其他鸟类的巢中产卵，所以在养父母身上留下印记会导致它们的后代错误地识别出自己的物种。寄生虫的识别是如何发展的？本项目研究了北美常见的褐头牛鹂（Molothrus ater）的物种识别。本研究通过对自然寄生巢的连续观察，选择性清除雌性寄生虫以限制羽翼牛椋鸟的早期社会经验，DNA亲代分析，在寄生后代发育过程中回放同种鸣叫，以及手养幼鸟的羽毛操作，评估了社会学习和自我参照表型匹配在牛椋鸟物种识别发展中的相对重要性。本研究将为物种、亲缘和配偶识别机制的研究提供信息。此外，由于物种识别是大多数宿主-寄生虫系统生物学的一个鲜为人知的方面，这项工作的发现也将增加我们对宿主和自我识别的理解。

TITLE: Dissertation Research: Species Recognition in Brood Parasites FACULTY SPONSOR: Paul W. Sherman STUDENT: Mark E. Hauber Most birds and mammals are reared among family members. Therefore, learning the characteristics of siblings and parents results in appropriate species recognition. Because brood parasites lay their eggs in nests of other birds, imprinting on foster parents would lead their young to misidentify their own species. How does recognition develop in parasites? This project investigates species recognition in the brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater), a common brood parasitic bird of North America. By combining continuous observations at naturally parasitized nests, selective removals of female parasites to limit early social experience of fledgling cowbirds, DNA parentage analyses, playbacks of conspecific vocalizations throughout parasitic offspring development, and plumage manipulations of hand-reared juveniles, this study evaluates the relative importance of social learning and self-referent phenotype matching in the development of cowbird species recognition. This study will be informative for research on species-, kin-, and mate-recognition mechanisms in general. In addition, because species recognition is a poorly known aspect of the biology of most host-parasite systems, findings from this work will also increase our understanding of host- and self-recognition.