Genetic architecture facilitates then constrains adaptation in a host-parasite coevolutionary arms race.

ABSTRACT: In coevolutionary arms races, interacting species impose selection on each other, generating reciprocal adaptations and counter adaptations. This process is typically enhanced by genetic recombination and heterozygosity, but these sources of evolutionary novelty may be secondarily lost when uniparental inheritance evolves to ensure the integrity of sex-linked adaptations. We demonstrate that host-specific egg mimicry in the African cuckoo finch Anomalospiza imberbis is maternally inherited, confirming the validity of an almost century-old hypothesis. We further show that maternal inheritance not only underpins the mimicry of different host species but also additional mimetic diversification that approximates the range of polymorphic egg “signatures” that have evolved within host species as

SUBMITTER: Spottiswoode CN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9170059 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature