Comparative Analysis of Time Spent Grooming By Birds in Relation To Parasite Load

1994/01/01 by Peter Cotgreave, Dale H. Clayton · 11 citations
Immunology and Microbiology · Environmental Science · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Bird parasitology and diseases #Avian ecology and behavior #Animal Behavior and Reproduction

paper · doi:10.1163/156853994x00424

Abstract

Abstract Although grooming and other kinds of maintenance activity are important components of the behavioural repertoire of terrestrial vertebrates, comparative studies of the proportion of time budgets devoted to maintenance are lacking. Data were collated on the proportion of their time-budgets devoted to maintenance behaviour by 62 different bird species. On average, birds spend 9.2% of the day in maintenance activities, with the major component (92.6%) being grooming. Male birds devoted more time to maintenance than females, except in the case of ducks. Maintenance time does not appear to correlate with morphology, moult, latitude, coloniality or season. However, bird species known to harbour more parasitic louse species spend more time on maintenance than do host species with few lice.

Citations

• Experimental demonstration of the energetic cost of parasitism in free-ranging hosts

Cited by

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• Coccidial infection does not influence preening behavior in American goldfinches. [europepmc]
• Grooming as a secondary behavior in the shrimp Macrobrachiumrosenbergii (Crustacea, Decapoda, Caridea). [europepmc]
• Sociality and health: impacts of sociality on disease susceptibility and transmission in animal and human societies. [europepmc]
• Anti-parasite behaviour of birds. [europepmc]
• Alternate routes of influenza A virus infection in Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos). [europepmc]
• Great Tit ( Parus major ) Uropygial Gland Microbiomes and Their Potential Defensive Roles. [europepmc]
• Mirror Self-Recognition in Pigeons: Beyond the Pass-or-Fail Criterion. [europepmc]
• Supervised machine learning aided behavior classification in pigeons. [europepmc]

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