{"id":62,"date":"2007-12-13T15:02:51","date_gmt":"2007-12-13T02:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds_and_evolution\/"},"modified":"2007-12-13T15:02:51","modified_gmt":"2007-12-13T02:02:51","slug":"indigobirds-and-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/","title":{"rendered":"indigobirds and evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font>I see the level 3 paper had a question on indigobird evolution. This is quite a neat example of rapid sympatric evolution in an animal (&amp; one that I use in my own teaching here at Waikato), so I thought I might flesh it out a bit for you here.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><font><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/09\/ResearchBlogging-Medium-Trans.png\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research: Medium, transparent\" width=\"80\" height=\"50\" \/>Indigobirds are host-specific brood parasites i.e. each indigobird species parasitises a&nbsp;particular species. They lay their eggs in the hosts&#039; nests, where their chicks are raised and fed alongside the host&#039;s own babies. The parents are stimulated to provide food by the cheeping and the wide gaping mouths of the chicks &#8211; and baby indigobirds&#039; <a href=\"http:\/\/people.bu.edu\/msoren\/fig1.html\" target=\"_blank\">mouth markings mimic <\/a>those of their host species. This mimicry goes further: adult male indigobrids mimic their host&#039;s song, and females use this to find and choose a mate of their own species, and also to find their host&#039;s nests.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font>Sorenson &amp; his co-authors (2003)&nbsp;suggest that these indigobird behaviour patterns, as well as maintaining host specificity, would also provide a reproductive isolating mechanism: if an indigobird made an error in selecting a host nest, the next generation of chicks would imprint on and&nbsp;mimic that new host&#039;s song. And because both males and females imprint in this way, those chicks would be more likely to breed with each other than with chicks who&#039;d imprinted on the &#039;right&#039; host species. Ultimately this could lead to quite rapid sympatric speciation in indigobirds.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font>The researchers tested this prediction by comparing both mtDNA and nuclear DNA data from several indigobird species, and from their firefinch hosts. The mtDNA data were used to generate a phylogenetic tree for both hosts and parasites &#8211; you can see the full version <a href=\"http:\/\/people.bu.edu\/msoren\/fig3.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. This supports the idea of rapid indigobird speciation. Analysis of nuclear DNA found that indigobird species in a given region showed significant genetic differences, which indicated that indigobirds raised by a given host are most likely to breed with other individuals raised by the same host species i.e. that imprinting on host song can indeed act as a behavioural isolating mechanism. (This would then be followed by selection for mouth patterns in nestlings.) <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font>This story has it all, really: sympatric speciation in a vertebrate species; a key role for sexual selection (females choosing mates on the basis of their song); behavioural isolating mechanisms&#8230; I like it \ud83d\ude42<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font>You&#039;ll find more&nbsp;images of indigobirds <a href=\"http:\/\/people.bu.edu\/msoren\/indigos.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> &#8211; &amp; a heap of other stuff as well. There are pictures of the fire-finches that indigobirds parasitise, and also sound files, so that you can hear how well the indigobirds mimic their hosts&#039; songs.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">Reference:<br \/>M.D. Sorenson, K.M.Sefc &amp; R.B. Payne (2003) Speciation by host switch in brood parasitic indigobirds. <em>Nature<\/em> <strong>424<\/strong>: 928-931<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I see the level 3 paper had a question on indigobird evolution. This is quite a neat example of rapid sympatric evolution in an animal (&amp; one that I use in my own teaching here at Waikato), so I thought I might flesh it out a bit for you here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,5],"tags":[19,12],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>indigobirds and evolution : BioBlog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"indigobirds and evolution : BioBlog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I see the level 3 paper had a question on indigobird evolution. This is quite a neat example of rapid sympatric evolution in an animal (&amp; one that I use in my own teaching here at Waikato), so I thought I might flesh it out a bit for you here.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BioBlog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-13T02:02:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/09\/ResearchBlogging-Medium-Trans.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alison\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AcampbelTeacher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Alison\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/\",\"name\":\"indigobirds and evolution : BioBlog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/09\/ResearchBlogging-Medium-Trans.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2007-12-13T02:02:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2007-12-13T02:02:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#\/schema\/person\/9676347d9dce672ed12b14407e623cea\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/09\/ResearchBlogging-Medium-Trans.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/09\/ResearchBlogging-Medium-Trans.png\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"indigobirds and evolution\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/\",\"name\":\"BioBlog\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#\/schema\/person\/9676347d9dce672ed12b14407e623cea\",\"name\":\"Alison\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/x.com\/AcampbelTeacher\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/author\/acampbel\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"indigobirds and evolution : BioBlog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2007\/12\/indigobirds-and-evolution\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"indigobirds and evolution : BioBlog","og_description":"I see the level 3 paper had a question on indigobird evolution. 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