Ecology

Climate warming and urbanization may expand dengue transmission risk in California

1. Lisa I. Couper
2. Terrell J Sipin
3. Samantha Sambado
4. Zoe Rennie
5. Kyle M. Shanebeck
6. Kelsey P. Lyberger
7. Philip P.A. Collender
8. Van Ngo
9. Justin V. Remais
10. Andrew J. MacDonald

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases, PREreview

Cardenolide toxin diversity impacts monarch butterfly growth and sequestration

1. Anurag A Agrawal
2. Amy P Hastings
3. Paola Rubiano-Buitrago

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study investigates how structurally diverse cardenolide toxins in tropical milkweed, especially mixtures containing nitrogen- and sulfur-containing variants, influence monarch caterpillar feeding, growth, and toxin sequestration. The experiments provide solid evidence that chemical diversity within a single group of plant toxins can have combined effects on even highly specialized herbivores that differ from the effects of each toxin alone. However, as the mixture design does not fully separate true diversity effects from the influence of the N,S-cardenolides themselves and the ecological basis for the chosen natural ratios remains weakly justified. As a result, the broader conclusions would require more fully justified concentration regimes, mixture treatments that exclude N,S-cardenolides, and tests on living plants and non-adapted herbivores to firmly support the proposed coevolutionary interpretation.

Reviewed by eLife

Spatial signature of resource distribution is mediated by consumer body size and habitat preference

1. Chelsea J. Little
2. Pierre Etienne Banville
3. Adam T. Ford
4. Rachel M. Germain

Reviewed by Peer Community in Ecology

Rift Valley fever virus dynamics in a transhumant cattle system in The Gambia

1. Essa Jarra
2. Divine Ekwem
3. Sarah Cleaveland
4. Daniel T Haydon

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This modelling study tests several hypotheses describing how seasonality and migration drive the epidemiology of Rift Valley Fever Virus among transhumant cattle in The Gambia. The work is methodologically solid, and the findings offer valuable insights into how the movement of cattle in and out of the Gambia River and Sahel ecoregions could lead to source-sink transmission dynamics among cattle subpopulations, sustaining endemic transmission.

Reviewed by eLife

Dopamine and its receptor DcDop2 are involved in the mutualistic interaction between ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’ and Diaphorina citri

1. Xiaoge Nian
2. Jiayun Li
3. Jilei Huang
4. Weiwei Yuan
5. Paul Holford
6. George Andrew Charles Beattie
7. Jielan He
8. Yijing Cen
9. Yurong He
10. Songdou Zhang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Insects can act as vectors of plant diseases, hence the study of insect-pathogen interactions is relevant for agriculture. This important study identifies in Diaphorina citri a dopamine receptor responsive to 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus' infection, demonstrate direct regulation of this receptor by a microRNA, and integrate dopamine signaling into an established insect reproductive hormone framework. Multiple complementary experimental approaches convincingly support the findings, but key conclusions rely on correlative data and the mechanistic evidence for the proposed linear signaling cascade is incomplete. This work will be of interest for insect physiology and vector-pathogen biology, and more broadly for citrus agriculture.

Reviewed by eLife

The urban tree of life: quantifying relationships between body size and urban tolerance for more than 30,000 plant and animal species

1. Corey T Callaghan
2. Diana E Bowler
3. Vaughn Shirey
4. Brittany M Mason
5. Laura H Antão
6. Ingmar Staude
7. John H Wilshire
8. Thomas Merckx

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides an important assessment of how body size influences the occurrence of macro-organisms in urban areas across the globe. Size in most plants, but only some animal families, was positively associated with urban tolerance. The data set is impressive, but the evidence for broad-scale conclusions is incomplete due to methodological issues that need to be resolved.

Reviewed by eLife

Exogenous myristate fuels the growth of symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi but disrupts their carbon-phosphorus exchange with host plants

1. Hanwen Chen
2. Tian Xiong
3. Baoxing Guan
4. Jiaqi Huang
5. Danrui Zhao
6. Yao Chen
7. Haoran Liang
8. Yingwei Li
9. Jingwen Wu
10. Shaoping Ye
11. Ting Li
12. Wensheng Shu
13. Jin-tian Li
14. Yutao Wang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides important evidence that myristate, a fatty acid commonly present in soil environments, is taken up by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi during symbiosis with a plant host. The evidence presented is solid, with multiple experimental approaches including stable isotope tracing, transcriptional analysis, and physiological measurements across different plant species and phosphorus conditions. However, the main claims are only partially supported.

Reviewed by eLife

Geno-pheno characterization of crop rhizospheres: An integrated Raman spectroscopy and microbiome approach in conventional and organic agriculture

1. Yejin Son
2. Peisheng He
3. Mathew Baldwin
4. Guangyu Li
5. Zijian Wang
6. April Z. Gu
7. Jenny Kao-Kniffin

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Disentangling urbanisation, climate effects and their interaction on ornamental colourations

1. Lisa Sandmeyer
2. David López-Idiáquez
3. Amélie Fargevieille
4. Pablo Giovannini
5. Samuel Perret
6. Maria Del Rey
7. Anne Charmantier
8. Claire Doutrelant
9. Arnaud Grégoire

Reviewed by Peer Community in Ecology

The Plasmodium transmission-blocking symbiont, Microsporidia MB , is vertically transmitted through Anopheles arabiensis germline stem cells

1. Thomas O. Onchuru
2. Edward E. Makhulu
3. Purity C. Ronnie
4. Stancy Mandere
5. Fidel G. Otieno
6. Joseph Gichuhi
7. Jeremy K. Herren

Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases