Evolutionary Biology

Dynamic simulations of feeding and respiration of the early Cambrian periderm-bearing cnidarian polyps

1. Yiheng Zhang
2. Xing Wang
3. Jian Han
4. Juyue Xiao
5. Yuanyuan Yong
6. Chiyang Yu
7. Ning Yue
8. Jie Sun
9. Kaiyue He
10. Wenjing Hao
11. Tao Zhang
12. Bin Wang
13. Deng Wang
14. Xiaoguang Yang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study advances our understanding of early Cambrian cnidarian paleoecology and suggests that the reconstructed ancestral feeding and respiration mechanisms predate jet-propelled swimming utilized by modern jellyfish. The work combines solid evidence of fluid and structural mechanics modeling, simulating for the first time the feeding and respiratory capacities in a microfossil (Quadrapyrgites), which in turn opens new possibilities using this approach for paleontological research. Assuming that the prior interpretations and assumptions concerning the modeled organism's soft part and skeletal anatomy are correct, the hypotheses that (1) the organism could alternately contract and expand the oral region and (2) such movement increased feeding efficiency seem plausible.

Reviewed by eLife

Identification of the mode of evolution in incomplete carbonate successions

1. Niklas Hohmann
2. Joël R. Koelewijn
3. Peter Burgess
4. Emilia Jarochowska

Reviewed by Peer Community in Paleontology

Taking fear back into the Marginal Value Theorem: the risk-MVT and optimal boldness

1. Vincent Calcagno
2. Frédéric Grognard
3. Frédéric M. Hamelin
4. Ludovic Mailleret

Reviewed by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology

Indels allow antiviral proteins to evolve functional novelty inaccessible by missense mutations

1. Jeannette L. Tenthorey
2. Serena del Banco
3. Ishrak Ramzan
4. Hayley Klingenberg
5. Chang Liu
6. Michael Emerman
7. Harmit S. Malik

Reviewed by PREreview

Relationship between weapon size and six key behavioural and physiological traits in males of the European earwig

1. Samantha E M Blackwell
2. Laura Pasquier
3. Simon Dupont
4. Severine devers
5. Charlotte Lecureuil
6. Joël Meunier

Reviewed by Peer Community In Zoology

Insights into early animal evolution from the genome of the xenacoelomorph worm Xenoturbella bocki

1. Philipp H Schiffer
2. Paschalis Natsidis
3. Daniel J Leite
4. Helen E Robertson
5. François Lapraz
6. Ferdinand Marlétaz
7. Bastian Fromm
8. Liam Baudry
9. Fraser Simpson
10. Eirik Høye
11. Anne C Zakrzewski
12. Paschalia Kapli
13. Katharina J Hoff
14. Steven Müller
15. Martial Marbouty
16. Heather Marlow
17. Richard R Copley
18. Romain Koszul
19. Peter Sarkies
20. Maximilian J Telford

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors provide a high quality genome of the xenacoelomorph worm Xenoturbella bocki and discuss its structure and evolution. Understanding the genomic structure of this group provides important insights into bilaterian evolution. The authors make a solid case that the data they present can support the placement of Xenacoelomorpha within the deuterostomes rather than as a sister group to all other bilaterians, but do not unequivocally reject the competing scenario.

Reviewed by eLife

Genetic architecture of inbreeding depression may explain its persistence in a population of wild red deer

1. Anna M. Hewett
2. Susan E. Johnston
3. Alison Morris
4. Sean Morris
5. Josephine M. Pemberton

Reviewed by PREreview

Leveraging Natural Language Processing models to decode the dark proteome across the Animal Tree of Life

1. Gemma I. Martínez-Redondo
2. Francisco M. Perez-Canales
3. José M. Fernández
4. Israel Barrios-Núñez
5. Marçal Vázquez-Valls
6. Ildefonso Cases
7. Ana M. Rojas
8. Rosa Fernández

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Evolutionary genomics reveals variation in structure and genetic content implicated in virulence and lifestyle in the genus Gaeumannomyces

1. Rowena Hill
2. Michelle Grey
3. Mariano Olivera Fedi
4. Daniel Smith
5. Gail Canning
6. Sabrina J. Ward
7. Naomi Irish
8. Jade Smith
9. Vanessa E. McMillan
10. Jess Hammond
11. Sarah-Jane Osborne
12. Gillian Reynolds
13. Ellie Smith
14. Tania Chancellor
15. David Swarbreck
16. Neil Hall
17. Javier Palma-Guerrero
18. Kim E. Hammond-Kosack
19. Mark McMullan

Reviewed by Review Commons

Sex-biased regulatory changes in the placenta of native highlanders contribute to adaptive fetal development

1. Tian Yue
2. Yongbo Guo
3. Xuebin Qi
4. Wangshan Zheng
5. Hui Zhang
6. Bin Wang
7. Kai Liu
8. Bin Zhou
9. Xuerui Zeng
10. Ouzhuluobu
11. Yaoxi He
12. Bing Su

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This fundamental study reports differential expression of key genes in full-term placenta between Tibetans and Han Chinese at high elevations, which are more pronounced in the placenta of male fetus than in female fetus. The gene expression data were collected and analyzed using solid and validated methodology, although there is limited support for hypoxia-specific responses due to a lack of low-altitude samples. Several of the placental genes found in this study have been previously reported to show signatures of positive selection in Tibetans, pointing to a potential mechanism of how human populations adapt to high elevation by mitigating the negative effects of low oxygen on fetal growth. The work will be of interest to evolutionary and population geneticists as well as researchers working on human hypoxic response.

Reviewed by eLife