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Laying date, incubation and egg breakage as determinants of bacterial load on bird eggshells: experimental evidence

  • Behavioral ecology - Original research
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Abstract

Exploring factors guiding interactions of bacterial communities with animals has become of primary importance for ecologists and evolutionary biologists during the last years because of their likely central role in the evolution of animal life history traits. We explored the association between laying date and eggshell bacterial load (mesophilic bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae, Staphylococci, and Enterococci) in natural and artificial magpie (Pica pica) nests containing fresh commercial quail (Coturnix coturnix) eggs. We manipulated hygiene conditions by spilling egg contents on magpie and artificial nests and explored experimental effects during the breeding season. Egg breakage is a common outcome of brood parasitism by great spotted cuckoos (Clamator glandarius) on the nests of magpie, one of its main hosts. We found that the treatment increased eggshell bacterial load in artificial nests, but not in magpie nests with incubating females, which suggests that parental activity prevents the proliferation of bacteria on the eggshells in relation to egg breakage. Moreover, laying date was positively related to eggshell bacterial load in active magpie nests, but negatively in artificial nests. The results suggest that variation in parental characteristics of magpies rather than climatic variation during the breeding season explained the detected positive association. Because the eggshell bacterial load is a proxy of hatching success, the detected positive association between eggshell bacterial loads and laying date in natural, but not in artificial nests, suggests that the generalized negative association between laying date and avian breeding success can be, at least partially, explained by differential bacterial effects.

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Acknowledgments

E. Campanario and E. López-Hernández performed all laboratory work. This work was financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, European funds (FEDER) (CGL2010-19233-C03-01, CGL2010-19233-C03-03, CGL2013-48193-C3-1-P, CGL2013-48193-C3-3-P). M. R. R. and G. T. respectively received a post-doctoral grant from the JAE-Doc and Juan de la Cierva programmes, and C. R.-C. had a pre-doctoral grant from the Spanish Government. We obtained permission to sample eggs and visit nests of magpies from the Consejería de Medio Ambiente (Junta de Andalucía).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecología Funcional y Evolutiva, Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas (CSIC), Ctra. Sacramento s/n, La Cañada de San Urbano, 04120, Almería, Spain

    Juan José Soler, Magdalena Ruiz-Rodríguez, Cristina Ruiz-Castellano & Gustavo Tomás

  2. Grupo Coevolución, Unidad Asociada al CSIC, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

    Juan José Soler & Manuel Martín-Vivaldi

  3. Departamento de Zoología, Universidad de Granada, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Manuel Martín-Vivaldi

  4. Departamento de Microbiología, Universidad de Granada, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Juan Manuel Peralta-Sánchez

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  1. Juan José Soler
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  2. Magdalena Ruiz-Rodríguez
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Correspondence to Juan José Soler.

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Communicated by Indrikis Krams.

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Soler, J.J., Ruiz-Rodríguez, M., Martín-Vivaldi, M. et al. Laying date, incubation and egg breakage as determinants of bacterial load on bird eggshells: experimental evidence. Oecologia 179, 63–74 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-015-3322-6

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