Signals of Need in Parent-Offspring Communication and their exploitation by the common cuckoo. Part IV

4) What do the researchers think that their findings mean (i.e. how do they interpret their findings)

    Ultimately, they determined that a cuckoo chick is able to predictably increase its call rate to offset its low gape area as these 2 features are the dominating factors that inform parents of nutritional needs. However, they are not fed as frequently as they would prefer and they suspect this is to avoid exhaustion of the host parents. Instead, they demand a similar amount of food as a standard warbler nest (4) for an extended duration.  This is counterintuitive as a cuckoo chick does not have any stake in the survive of the host parents, but they suspect that a constraint must prevent the cuckoo from the predicted optimal feeding rates.