{"id":917,"date":"2016-01-20T09:24:41","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T08:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/?p=917"},"modified":"2016-01-20T09:24:41","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T08:24:41","slug":"ancient-origin-of-blue-cuckoo-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/index.php\/2016\/01\/20\/ancient-origin-of-blue-cuckoo-eggs\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient origin of blue cuckoo eggs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How is egg color inherited in brood-parasitic common cuckoos (<em>Cuculus canorus<\/em>)? A study recently published in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/ncomms\/2016\/160112\/ncomms10272\/full\/ncomms10272.html#supplementary-information\">Nature Communications<\/a>\u00a0give answers, and has\u00a0an interesting relationship to DNA barcodes.<\/p>\n<p>The authors, fronted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ntnu.edu\/employees\/frode.fossoy\">Frode Foss\u00f8y<\/a> at the NTNU Department of Biology, analyzed both mitochondrial and nuclear markers in a wide geographical range of cuckoo populations including several closely related species. They found unambiguous evidence for maternal inheritance of egg coloration in the brood-parasitic <em>Cuculus canorus<\/em>. Moreover, they showed that the blue egg color of <em>C. canorus<\/em> parasites on redstarts (<i>Phoenicurus phoenicurus<\/i>) originated\u00a0around 2.6 MYA, in an ancestral mitochondrial lineage shared between the subspecies <em>C. c. canorus<\/em> and <em>C. c. bakeri.<\/em> This lineage\u00a0is genetically divergent from and even paraphyletic compared other <em>C.\u00a0<\/em><i>canorus<\/i>\u00a0populations and related <em>Cuculus<\/em> species.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Haplotype-network-cuckoo-barcodes.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-934\" src=\"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Haplotype-network-cuckoo-barcodes.jpg\" alt=\"Fig2\" width=\"946\" height=\"571\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Haplotype-network-cuckoo-barcodes.jpg 946w, https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Haplotype-network-cuckoo-barcodes-300x181.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Haplotype-network-cuckoo-barcodes-768x464.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 946px) 100vw, 946px\" \/><\/a><em>Partial figure from Foss\u00f8y et al. (2016) showing haplotype relationship between C. canorus populations laying differently colored eggs. DNA barcodes (b) and part of female specific w-chromosome (c)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>So what is the relationship with DNA barcodes? Well, the deep\u00a0genetic divergence between populations of <em>C. c. canorus<\/em>\u00a0was initially detected through a decent library of\u00a0partial COI-sequences (barcode region) and triggered further analysis of other markers to determine the evolutionary history of this phenomenon. This time, divergent DNA barcodes did not indicate cryptic species, but helped placing\u00a0a most interesting piece in\u00a0cuckoo evolution puzzle.<\/p>\n<p><em>Foss\u00f8y, F. et al. 2016.\u00a0Ancient origin and maternal inheritance of blue cuckoo eggs.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/ncomms\/2016\/160112\/ncomms10272\/full\/ncomms10272.html\"> Nature Communications 6:10272 doi: 10.1038\/ncomms10272<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How is egg color inherited in brood-parasitic common cuckoos (Cuculus canorus)? A study recently published in Nature Communications\u00a0give answers, and has\u00a0an interesting relationship to DNA barcodes. The authors, fronted by Frode Foss\u00f8y at the NTNU Department of Biology, analyzed both mitochondrial and nuclear markers in a wide geographical range of cuckoo populations including several closely [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.norbol.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}