Species richness varies among clades, yet the drivers of diversification creating this variation remain poorly understood. While abiotic factors likely drive some of the variation in species richness, ecological interactions may also contribute. Here, we examine one class of potential contributors to species richness variation that is particularly poorly understood: mutualistic interactions. We...

BACKGROUND Impairments in facial mimicry are considered a proxy for deficits in affective empathy and have been demonstrated in 10 year old children and in adolescents with disruptive behavior disorder (DBD). However, it is not known whether these impairments are already present at an earlier age. Emotional deficits have also been shown in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder ...

The mechanisms through which people perceive different types of smiles and judge their authenticity remain unclear. Here, 19 different types of smiles were created based on the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), using highly controlled, dynamic avatar faces. Participants observed short videos of smiles while their facial mimicry was measured with electromyography (EMG) over four facial muscles...

The two-step hypothesis of Müllerian mimicry evolution states that mimicry starts with a major mutational leap between adaptive peaks, followed by gradual fine-tuning. The hypothesis was suggested to solve the problem of apostatic selection producing a valley between adaptive peaks, and appears reasonable for a one-dimensional phenotype. Extending the hypothesis to the realistic scenario of mul...

Parasites that are molecular mimics express proteins which resemble host proteins. This resemblance facilitates immune evasion because the immune molecules with the specificity to react with the parasite also cross-react with the host's own proteins, and these lymphocytes are rare. Given this advantage, why are not most parasites molecular mimics? Here we explore potential factors that can sele...

This article presents a model of egg rejection in cases of brood parasitism. The model is developed in three stages in the framework of signal-detection theory. We first assume that the behavior of host females is adapted to the relevant parameters concerning the appearance of the eggs they lay. In the second stage, we consider the possibility that females make perceptual errors. In the final s...

We simulated mimicry evolution by allowing three populations to coevolve: two populations of senders and one of receivers. Artificial neural networks were used to model receivers, and it was assumed that recognition was inherited. The senders’ signals consisted of nine dimensions. Changes to receivers and senders were caused by random mutations during the course of the simulation. Whereas it pa...

In this paper the effect of mimicry on social behavior and judgment in social interaction is examined. When a stranger mimics the verbal and nonverbal expressions of somebody, higher positive judgment of the mimicker is found. It was also found that various positive social behaviors such as spontaneous helping behavior, compliance to a request addressed by the mimicker... are more favorably dis...

Among the many strategies employed by parasites for immune evasion and host manipulation, one of the most fascinating is molecular mimicry. With genome sequences available for host and parasite, mimicry of linear amino acid epitopes can be investigated by comparative genomics. Here we developed an in silico pipeline for genome-wide identification of molecular mimicry candidate proteins or epito...

Cuckoo-host interactions provide classical examples of coevolution. Cuckoos place hosts under selection to detect and reject foreign eggs, while host defences result in the evolution of host-egg mimicry in cuckoos. Despite a long history of research, egg pattern mimicry has never been objectively quantified, and so its coevolution with host defences has not been properly assessed. Here, we use ...