Mutualistic association between the purple-throated carib and its two Heliconia food plants in Dominica
Ever since Darwin, biologists have been fascinated with coevolution and have studied it using various ecological and phylogenetic approaches. Here we introduce a genomic approach to scrutinize the mutualistic association between 'Darwin's hummingbird', i.e. the purple-throated carib, and its two Heliconia food plants in Dominica. We reveal synchronized population size fluctuations between the three mutualistic partners and how hummingbird behavior influences plant genomics, supporting an ecological causation of their long-term interdependence and coadaptation. This genomic evidence demonstrates that specialised mutualisms can leave concerted evolutionary signatures, highlighting the power of comparative genomics to illuminate the strength and persistence of species interactions.