Niche construction through a Goldilocks principle maximizes fitness for a nest-sharing brood parasite.

Generalist brood parasites that share nests with host nestlings can optimize resource acquisition from host parents by balancing the benefits that host nest-mates provide, including attracting increased provisions to the nest, against the costs of competing with the same host young over foster parental resources. However, it is unclear how parasitic chicks cope when faced with more nest-mates than are optimal for their survival upon hatching. We suggest that, in the obligate brood parasitic brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater), chicks use a niche construction strategy and reduce larger, more competitive host broods to maximize the parasites' survival to fledging. We experimentally altered brood sizes to test for Goldilocks principle patterns (i.e. a 'just right' intermediate brood size) of cowbird survival in nests of prothonotary warbler (Protonotaria citrea) hosts. We found that intermediate brood sizes of two host nestlings maximized cowbird fledging success relative to 0 or 4 host nest-mates at hatching. Specifically, cowbird nestlings lowered host brood sizes towards this optimum when placed in broods with more host nestlings. The results suggest that cowbirds reduce, but do not eliminate, host broods as a niche construction mechanism to improve their own probability of survival.

Low incidence of cannibalism among brood parasitic cuckoo catfish embryos.

Brood parasites have demanding needs of host resources. Brood parasitic offspring are highly competitive and frequently cause the failure of host broods and the survival of a single parasitic offspring. Accordingly, virulent brood parasites lay a single egg in the same host nest to avoid sibling competition. In the cuckoo catfish (Synodontis multipunctatus), which parasitize mouthbrooding cichlid fishes in Lake Tanganyika, the modes of host and parasite oviposition lead to frequent cases of multiple parasitism. We experimentally tested the prediction that multiple parasitism leads to frequent cannibalism among offspring. Cuckoo catfish embryos prey upon host offspring to obtain nourishment during their 3-week development in the host buccal cavity and may also consume conspecific embryos. The potential benefits of cannibalism in the system are, therefore, twofold; to decrease competition for limited resources (i.e., host brood with rich yolk sacs) and to directly obtain nourishment by consuming rivals. We found that cannibalism indeed provided measurable benefits in terms of increased growth of the cannibals, but cannibalism was rare and typically occurred once all host offspring had been consumed. This implies that cannibalism among cuckoo catfish embryos emerges to mitigate starvation rather than eliminate competition.