ArticleNature communications2026
The ecological and developmental foundations of brood parasitism in a catfish.
Article in Nature communications, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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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.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- The ecological and developmental foundations of brood parasitism in a catfish.Nature communications · 2026Article
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13 authors.
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Abstract
Interspecific brood parasitism has evolved repeatedly from parental care. However, many non-avian brood-parasitic lineages have ancestors lacking parental care, leaving the foundations of brood parasitism in these lineages enigmatic. We examine ecological, reproductive, and developmental data from the Lake Tanganyika radiation of Synodontis catfishes, where one species, the cuckoo catfish, exhibits brood parasitism of mouthbrooding cichlid fishes. Our comparative analyses, coupled with experimental parasitism, suggest that a combination of ancestral traits (large eggs and rapid embryo development) enabled the origin of brood parasitism. Evolutionary innovations then presumably enhanced the success of brood parasitism after it emerged. Novel traits comprise frequent production of small clutches to effectively utilize host availability, the evolution of egg mimicry to facilitate host egg adoption, and modifications to development to enhance the performance of catfish embryos in the host's buccal cavity. Interestingly, despite the distinct ecological and life history contexts of the origin of catfish brood parasitism, its evolutionary and developmental outcomes align with those of canonical avian brood parasites. This suggests that general patterns are repeated in the evolution of brood parasitism, despite disparate starting conditions.
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