The Large-billed Reed Warbler Acrocephalus orinus revisited

MHC diversity in two Acrocephalus species: the outbred Great reed warbler and the inbred Seychelles warbler.

The Great reed warbler (GRW) and the Seychelles warbler (SW) are congeners with markedly different demographic histories. The GRW is a normal outbred bird species while the SW population remains isolated and inbred after undergoing a severe population bottleneck. We examined variation at Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) class I exon 3 using restriction fragment length polymorphism, denatu...

Acrocephalus orinus: A Case of Mistaken Identity

Recent discovery of the Large-billed Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus orinus) in museums and in the wild significantly expanded our knowledge of its morphological traits and genetic variability, and revealed new data on geographical distribution of the breeding grounds, migration routes and wintering locations of this species. It is now certain that A. orinus is breeding in Central Asia; however, the...

Does egg colouration signal female and egg quality in reed warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus)?

Does egg colouration signal female and egg quality in reed warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus)? J. Krištofík a , A. Darolová a , M. Griggio b , J. Majtán a c , M. Okuliarová d , M. Zeman d , L. Zídková e & H. Hoi b a Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 845 06, Bratislava, Slovakia b Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology, Department of Integrative Biology and Evoluti...

Common cuckoos (Cuculus canorus) affect the bacterial diversity of the eggshells of their great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus) hosts

The common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is an avian brood parasite, laying its eggs in the nests of other bird species, where these hosts incubate the parasitic eggs, feed and rear the nestlings. The appearance of a cuckoo egg in a host nest may change the bacterial community in the nest. This may have consequences on the hatchability of host eggs, even when hosts reject the parasitic egg, typicall...

Heritability of dispersal in the great reed warbler