Fitzpatrick Institute 50th Anniversary Seminar: 'Arms races through colour space: coevolution and the Cuckoo Finch' by Dr Claire Spottiswoode

Prof. Phil Hockey, Director of the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at the University of Cape Town, invites you to attend a

FITZPATRICK INSTITUTE 50TH ANNIVERSARY SEMINAR:

Arms races through colour space: coevolution and the Cuckoo Finch

Presented by Dr Claire Spottiswoode
Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow,
University of Cambridge, UK & Research Associate of the FitzPatrick Institute, UCT

Date: Wednesday 7 April
Time: 13h00 (Guest to be seated by 12h45)
Venue: Niven Library

Talk summary: Brood parasitic birds such as cuckoos are cheats that lay their eggs in the nests of other species, and exploit them to pay the costs of raising their young. Host species, in turn, have evolved defences against such cheats, such as rejecting foreign eggs from their nests, favouring parasitic counter-adaptations such as egg mimicry. The two parties can thus become locked in a coevolutionary struggle, each to stay one step ahead of the other, as parasites evolve ever better manipulation of their hosts, and hosts respond with ever more refined defences to evade parasitism. This talk will be about an African brood parasite, the Cuckoo Finch, whose hosts have evolved an intriguing defence against parasitism: laying eggs in a spectacular diversity of colours. The talk will investigate the evolution of such defensive polymorphisms in different host species, using visual modelling techniques to study egg colour and pattern through a bird's eye. It will show how this coevolutionary 'arms race' between parasite and hosts has led to remarkably rapid changes in egg appearance within the time scale of a human lifetime.

See Fitz Seminars for more details about the seminar programme.