"Leggo my Egg": Investigating Individual Recognition in the Alcidae Family

Abstract

Common murre (U. aalge) eggs have been widely recorded to display a large spectrum of colors and patterns in natural studies. The functionality for high variation in phenotypes has been proposed to be an identity signal for individual recognition. Because U. aalge breed in highly dense colonies, a selective pressure to correctly identify its individual egg should be present and favor eggs that are more distinct in color and pattern when compared to conspecific eggs. Behavior tests have shown U. aalge parents are able identify and retrieve their own eggs when given a foreign egg to choose between. To investigate the evolution of how individual recognition functions from the signaler’s perspective, I quantitatively measure the variation in pattern within a representative avian visual system. I then compare the variation in pattern across closely related species who have also been tested for their ability for individual recognition to understand how it develops. I find supporting evidence that U. aalge eggs are indeed more variable than other species eggs who do not display individual recognition or only partial individual recognition. This study supports color and pattern variation evolved for recognizability in U. aalge eggs.