As the study of cooperative breeding systems expands, a number of key
species form the examples that underpin our general understanding. The
ostrich is increasingly becoming such a textbook species, on the basis
of the results obtained in Brian Bertram's study of vigilance and egg
discrimination in this extraordinary bird. Here Bertram presents new
data on the ostrich communal nesting system, in which several females
lay in one female's nest, with only one female and the male doing all
the work. The Ostrich Communal Nesting System unravels the basis of the
cooperation observed, and explains how a system involving apparent
altruism is maintained by natural selection. It is now possible as never
before to explain and quantify the effects of the different choices
these birds make and to integrate ecological and morphological factors
such as predation and size. Based on three seasons of study in Tsavo
West National Park in Kenya, this book depended on recognizing
individual birds, detecting and monitoring well-concealed nests,
determining motherhood of eggs from their surface appearance, and
time-lapse photography of nests. Key findings were that females could
switch rapidly between reproductive strategies, that a nesting female
could recognize her own eggs and when necessary discriminate against
those of other females, and that the whiteness of ostrich eggs is an
adaptation that protects them against overheating but at the cost of
greater vulnerability to predation.
Originally published in 1992.
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