Nest sanitation in passerine birds: implications for egg rejection in hosts of brood parasites

Abstract

We reviewed information on nest sanitation (nest cleaning) by passerine birds because the act of cleaning nests is thought to be associated with egg rejection by hosts of brood parasites, and yet there has been no synthesis of the literature on nest sanitation. In the first part of the review, we summarized information on nest sanitation. We found that birds remove a variety of objects from nests such as egg shells, fecal sacs, pieces of vegetation, invertebrate parasites, dead chicks, uneaten food, and occasionally unhatched eggs. Fecal sac removal, the most commonly considered type of nest sanitation behavior, is not divided equally between the sexes across species; females remove more fecal sacs than males. In addition, larger species tend to carry fecal sacs farther than smaller species. In the second part of the review, we discuss the importance of nest sanitation in the evolution of egg rejection behavior of brood parasite hosts. Recent studies involving the experimental addition of non-egg-shaped objects to nests or to the vicinity of nests suggest that nest sanitation plays a role in host rejection of avian brood parasitism. Most objects added to nests prior to hatching (usually hard) and after hatching (usually soft) were rejected. In a logistic regression model, shape and size were the significant factors in eliciting rejection for all hosts that received experimental non-egg objects added to their nests prior to hatching. Nest sanitation may be an exaptation for antiparasite defences and thus plays an important role in the host-parasite arms race.