The interactions between avian obligate interspecific brood parasites and their hosts provide
tractable systems for studying coevolutionary processes in nature. This review highlights …

Prenatal auditory stimulation is known to critically affect the development of acoustic
preference and species recognition throughout ontogeny in birds. We focus our review on …

Selection should act on parental care and favour parental investment decisions that optimize
the number of offspring produced. Such predictions have been robustly tested in predation …

Prenatal imitative learning is an emerging research area in both human and non-human
animals. Previous studies in Superb Fairywrens (Malurus cyaneus) showed that mothers are …

Personality syndromes in animals may have adaptive benefits for survival. For example,
while engaging in predator deterrence, reactive individuals tend to prioritise their own …

The reaction of birds to the nest parasite, the European cuckoo Cuculus canorus, has been
the subject of extensive testing in various aspects. However, while the cuckoo is a long …

Do parents defend their offspring whenever necessary, and do self-sacrificing parents really
exist? Studies recognized that parent defence is dynamic, mainly depending on the threat …

Male cuckoos Cuculus canorus produce calls that differ in number of syllables depending on
environmental conditions and presence of male and female conspecifics. Why different …

Brood parasites and predators pose different threats to passerines that may favour the
evolution of enemy-specific defence strategies. Furthermore, potential sex-specific variation …

Female song is an ancestral trait in songbirds, yet extant females generally sing less than
males. Here, we examine sex differences in the predation cost of singing behaviour. The …