Brood Parasitism Life Sciences Coursework Research (Coursework Sample)

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BROOD PARASITISM
Brood parasitism is a reproductive strategy whereby parasites, such as the insects or birds, pass on their rightful responsibility of brooding and rearing of their offspring to another. It broadly meets the definition of a parasite as the parasites get to benefit while the host incurs all the costs and is negatively affected. As the parasite goes to lay its eggs into the host’s nests, it throws off or destroys one or many of the host’s eggs. Characteristically, most eggs of the parasite hatch earlier than those of the host and when they do, the parasitic chick sometimes pushes out the eggs of the host or kills its hatchlings.
Brood parasitism is commonly seen in birds and insects of the order Hymenoptera than in other species. It is also less frequently seen in some fish, but here, the relationship is more mutual than parasitic. About 1 percent of the birds are interspecific brood parasites. Within the species, brood parasitism is found to be more successful than across them. Additionally, it can be observed that defense mechanisms are most robust across member species CITATION Mal84 \l 1033 (Anderson, 1984).
Brood Parasitism in Insects
In the insect family, brood parasitism can be described as cleptoparasitism where the cuckoo bee, such as the Coelioxys lays its eggs in the cells of another bee (the Leaf-cutter bees). The cuckoo bee lays its eggs in the nest of the host that has already been stocked with food, and its larvae grow up with this food. With more massive mandibles, the parasite burrows and chews through the cavities and on reaching to the stocked food, it consumes it, and in the end, it reaches to the hatched eggs of the hosts and pushes them aside to lay its own. At other times, the cuckoo bee kills the eggs of the host bees. These female cuckoos are the ones responsible for taking the time to build muddy chambered nests to lay the eggs and to collect nectar and pollen to their young ones but fail to do so.