Vidua mimicry and speciation featured in Evolution

Dec 2, 2020

Trends in Ecology and Evolution front cover, September 2020

We’re delighted that the amazing diversity of estrildid finch chick phenotypes, many of which are mimicked by their indigobird and whydah brood parasites, was featured on the front cover of the November issue of Evolution.

As well as featuring our paper Multimodal mimicry of hosts in a radiation of parasitic finches“, the issue also contains an insightful ‘Digest’ piece on our research by Renan Janke Bosque, Jente Ottenburghs, Cecília Rodrigues Vieira and Fabrícius Maia Chaves Bicalho Domingos. You can read it here: “The interplay between imprinting, mimicry, and multimodal signaling can lead to sympatric speciation“).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

News

Jess Lund awarded an R. C. Lewontin Grant from the Society for the Study of Evolution

The Society for the Study of Evolution has awarded Jess Lund an R. C. Lewontin Graduate Research Excellence Grant, which will enable her to expand her investigations into the fascinating lives of honeyguides. This grant is awarded to students early in their PhD programmes to assist them in enhancing the scope of their research. Thank you to the SSE for their generous support of our work!

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New paper on eggshell surface properties

Stephanie McClelland’s paper entitled “Eggshell composition and surface properties of avian brood-parasitic species compared with non-parasitic species” has been published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. This study measured structural properties of the eggshells of brood parasites and their hosts around the world. The study found that…

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