The term "code breaking" can apply to situations in the animal world where one species hijacks certain signals from another species. One example is called brood parasitism when a bird places its own eggs in another species nest and the other species will respond to fake signals from the heterospecific young to feed them. This behavior of the unintentional foster parents appears to be a Darwinian puzzle. Which of the statements below best supports that this is an adaptive behavior on part of the foster parents instead?
a. The parents that are placing their young in another nest are gaining an advantage of having offspring without the resource draining cost.
b. Baby birds are completely dependent on their parents to feed them in order to survive therefore it is extremely important that parents respond to begging signals from their young to initiate feeding.
c. Bird neural processing is limited so parents cannot distinguish the brood parasites from their own offspring.
d. There are always enough resources to "go around" so feeding baby birds that are not their own will not negatively impact the parents who feed heterospecific offspring.
