ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2011
Ancient host specificity within a single species of brood parasitic bird.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- Coevolution and Functional Effects of EndosymbioticEcology and evolution · 2026Article
- Comparative population genomics reveals convergent adaptation across independent origins of avian obligate brood parasitism.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Genomic resources for comparative analyses of obligate avian brood parasitism.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Nest architecture influences host use by avian brood parasites and is shaped by coevolutionary dynamics.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Guides and cheats: producer-scrounger dynamics in the human-honeyguide mutualism.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Eggshell composition and surface properties of avian brood-parasitic species compared with non-parasitic species.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Genetic architecture facilitates then constrains adaptation in a host-parasite coevolutionary arms race.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Embryo movement is more frequent in avian brood parasites than birds with parental reproductive strategies.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- From micro- to macroevolution: brood parasitism as a driver of phenotypic diversity in birds.Current zoology · 2020Article
- The coevolutionary biology of brood parasitism: a call for integration.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Convergent evolution of reduced eggshell conductance in avian brood parasites.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Genetic Diversity andFrontiers in genetics · 2019Article
- Genetic and chemical divergence among host races of a socially parasitic ant.Ecology and evolution · 2018Article
- Does coevolution with a shared parasite drive hosts to partition their defences among species?Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Article
- Ancient origin and maternal inheritance of blue cuckoo eggs.Nature communications · 2016Article
- Coevolution is linked with phenotypic diversification but not speciation in avian brood parasites.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2015Article
- Potential merger of ancient lineages in a passerine bird discovered based on evidence from host-specific ectoparasites.Ecology and evolution · 2015Article
- The sight of an adult brood parasite near the nest is an insufficient cue for a honeyguide host to reject foreign eggs.The Ibis · 2015Article
- Supergenes and their role in evolution.Heredity · 2014Review
- A brood parasite selects for its own egg traits.Biology letters · 2013Article
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5 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Parasites that exploit multiple hosts often experience diversifying selection for host-specific adaptations. This can result in multiple strains of host specialists coexisting within a single parasitic species. A long-standing conundrum is how such sympatric host races can be maintained within a single parasitic species in the face of interbreeding among conspecifics specializing on different hosts. Striking examples are seen in certain avian brood parasites such as cuckoos, many of which show host-specific differentiation in traits such as host egg mimicry. Exploiting a Zambian egg collection amassed over several decades and supplemented by recent fieldwork, we show that the brood parasitic Greater Honeyguide Indicator indicator exhibits host-specific differentiation in both egg size and egg shape. Genetic analysis of honeyguide eggs and chicks show that two highly divergent mitochondrial DNA lineages are associated with ground- and tree-nesting hosts, respectively, indicating perfect fidelity to two mutually exclusive sets of host species for millions of years. Despite their age and apparent adaptive diversification, however, these ancient lineages are not cryptic species; a complete lack of differentiation in nuclear genes shows that mating between individuals reared by different hosts is sufficiently frequent to prevent speciation. These results indicate that host specificity is maternally inherited, that host-specific adaptation among conspecifics can be maintained without reproductive isolation, and that host specificity can be remarkably ancient in evolutionary terms.
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