ArticleScientific reports2018
Characteristics determining host suitability for a generalist parasite.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Parasitic plants show striking convergence in host preference across angiosperm lineages.Annals of botany · 2025Article
- Asian koel rapidly locates host breeding in novel nest sites.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Dynamics of evolutionary succession and coordination between opposite adaptations in cuckoo hosts under antagonistic coevolution.Communications biology · 2024Article
- A review of the cues used for rejecting foreign eggs from the nest by the Eurasian blackbird (Ecology and evolution · 2022Review
- Host preferences inhibit transmission from potential superspreader host species.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Experimental evidence that host choice by parasites is age-dependent in a fish-monogenean system.Parasitology research · 2022Article
- Could diffuse coevolution explain the generic eggshell color of the brown-headed cowbird?Current zoology · 2021Article
- A Chromosome-Level Genome Assembly of the Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus).Genome biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Gastroenteric parasite of wild Galliformes in the Italian Alps: implication for conservation management.Parasitology · 2020Article
- Host alarm calls attract the unwanted attention of the brood parasitic common cuckoo.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Defences against brood parasites from a social immunity perspective.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Review
- Host specificity pattern and chemical deception in a social parasite of ants.Scientific reports · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Host quality is critical for parasites. The common cuckoo Cuculus canorus is a generalist avian brood parasite, but individual females show strong preference for a specific host species. Here, we use three extensive datasets to investigate different host characteristics determining cuckoo host selection at the species level: (i) 1871 population-specific parasitism rates collected across Europe; (ii) 14 K cases of parasitism in the United Kingdom; and (iii) 16 K cases of parasitism in Germany, with data collected during the period 1735-2013. We find highly consistent effects of the different host species traits across our three datasets: the cuckoo prefers passerine host species of intermediate size that breed in grass- or shrubland and that feed their nestlings with insects, and avoids species that nest in cavities. Based on these results, we construct a novel host suitability index for all passerine species breeding in Europe, and show that host species known to have a corresponding cuckoo host race (gens) rank among the most suitable hosts in Europe. The distribution of our suitability index shows that host species cannot be classified as suitable or not but rather range within a continuum of suitability.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.