Colonial information centres

Abstract

Study of cliff swallow Hirundo pyrrhonota colonies supports the hypothesis that colonies can act as information centres for foraging vertebrates. The number of host-specific ectoparasitic haematophagous cimicid swallow bugs Oeciacus vicarius per nest, however, increases with swallow colony size, ahnd the body mass of nestlings declines as the number of bugs per nestling increases. -P.J.Jarvis