The Asian koel rapidly locates hosts breeding in novel nest sites

Avian brood parasites depend upon finding host nests to lay their eggs. However, how brood parasites find the nests of their hosts and select the nests for parasitism remains mostly unresolved. Here, we examined how a non-evicting brood parasite, the Asian koel (Eudynamys scolopaceus) selects the hosts' nests to lay their eggs. We provided a novel habitat (nest box, n=100) to the Asian koel and its host, the common myna (Acridotheres tristis), at a field site in central Bangladesh. A total of 99 nests across 59 boxes were used by common mynas, of which 21.2% of these nests were parasitized by the Asian koel. Moreover, non-host species, the Oriental magpie robin (Copsychus saularis) (n=8) and jungle myna (Acridotheres fuscus) (n=6) also built nests in the boxes but none of these nests were parasitized. We found that active boxes were significantly more parasitized than inactive nest boxes. Among the active nest boxes, only common myna nests were parasitized by the Asian koel. We found a ..., We placed 100 nest boxes in the study area in March 2022 (Fig. 1). Nest boxes were placed on trees about seven meters above the ground. All the nest boxes were located in areas usually utilized by common mynas. The dimension of the nest boxes was length 20.5 cm, width 20.5 cm, height 30.5 cm, top cover 24.2 cm, and the entrance was 9.5 cm for 50 boxes and 12.7 cm for another 50 boxes. The nest boxes were tied to trees with metal wires. We checked the nest boxes regularly to monitor nest building process by the common myna, and later to examine whether a clutch was parasitized by the Asian koel. Asian koel eggs were easily distinguished from common myna eggs by color, pattern, and size (Nahid et al. 2021). Moreover, Oriental magpie robin and jungle myna eggs were also easily distinguishable from Asian koel egg (Begum et al. 2012; Karim and Ahsan 2016; Nahid et al. 2021)., This data files can be opened by Microsoft Excel., # The Asian koel rapidly locates hosts breeding in novel nest sites --- * Dataset Title: Data for the article “Asian koels recognize the host, but not their nests, for brood parasitism” * Persistent Identifier: [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8pk0p2ntd](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8pk0p2ntd) * Dataset Contributors: Mominul Islam Nahid, Peter S. Ranke, and Wei Liang * Address of contributors: 1 Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Ecology of Tropical Islands, Key Laboratory of Tropical Animal and Plant Ecology of Hainan Province, College of Life Sciences, Hainan Normal University, Haikou 571158, China 2 Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics (CBD), Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Høgskoleringen 5, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway 3 BirdLife Norway, Sandgata 30 B, NO-7012 Trondheim, Norway * Correspondence: Dr. Wei Liang ([[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])) * Date of Issue: 2023-07-7 * Dataset citation: Nah...鸟类巢寄生者（avian brood parasite）依赖寻找到宿主巢穴以产卵。然而，巢寄生者如何定位宿主巢穴并选择寄生巢位，目前仍未得到充分阐明。本研究以非驱逐型巢寄生鸟类（non-evicting brood parasite）——亚洲噪鹃（*Eudynamys scolopaceus*）为对象，探究其如何选择宿主巢穴进行产卵。我们在孟加拉国中部的野外样地中，为亚洲噪鹃及其宿主家八哥（*Acridotheres tristis*）提供了100个人工巢箱（nest box）作为新型栖息场所。共计59个巢箱被家八哥利用，共筑成99个巢穴，其中21.2%的巢被亚洲噪鹃寄生。此外，非宿主物种鹊鸲（*Copsychus saularis*，n=8）和丛林八哥（*Acridotheres fuscus*，n=6）也在巢箱中筑巢，但未发现任何被亚洲噪鹃寄生的案例。我们发现……此外，我们于2022年3月在研究区域内放置了100个人工巢箱（图1）。巢箱被安装在距地面约7米的树木上，所有巢箱均设置在家八哥常活动的区域。巢箱尺寸为长20.5 cm、宽20.5 cm、高30.5 cm，顶盖尺寸24.2 cm；其中50个巢箱的入口直径为9.5 cm，另外50个为12.7 cm。巢箱通过金属丝固定于树木之上。我们定期对巢箱进行检查，以监测家八哥的筑巢进程，并后续确认巢内卵是否被亚洲噪鹃寄生。通过体色、斑纹与体型即可轻松区分亚洲噪鹃卵与家八哥卵（Nahid等，2021）。此外，鹊鸲与丛林八哥的卵也可与亚洲噪鹃卵轻易区分（Begum等，2012；Karim & Ahsan，2016；Nahid等，2021）。 本数据集文件可通过Microsoft Excel打开。 # 亚洲噪鹃可快速定位人工巢箱内的宿主繁殖种群 * 数据集标题：《亚洲噪鹃巢寄生时识别宿主而非宿主巢穴》研究配套数据 * 永久标识符：https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8pk0p2ntd * 数据集贡献者：Mominul Islam Nahid、Peter S. Ranke及Wei Liang * 贡献者单位地址： 1. 教育部热带岛屿生态学重点实验室、海南省热带动植物生态重点实验室、海南师范大学生命科学学院，中国海口 571158 2. 挪威科技大学生物多样性动态研究中心（CBD）、生物系，Høgskoleringen 5，NO-7491 特隆赫姆，挪威 3. 挪威鸟类保护协会（BirdLife Norway），Sandgata 30 B，NO-7012 特隆赫姆，挪威 * 通讯作者：Wei Liang 博士（邮箱：[e-mail]） * 发布日期：2023年7月7日 * 数据集引用格式：Nah……