Evolutionary Biology

Spatiotemporal ecological chaos enables gradual evolutionary diversification without niches or tradeoffs

1. Aditya Mahadevan
2. Michael T Pearce
3. Daniel S Fisher

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study explores the question of "what gives rise to micro-diversity in ecological settings", and proposes a scenario of spatiotemporal chaos, in which interactions between strains drive large changes in the relative abundances of strains. The presented theoretical approach is compelling and goes beyond the current state of the art. This innovative theoretical work is of broad interest to the field of ecology and evolution.

Reviewed by eLife

Hierarchical sequence-affinity landscapes shape the evolution of breadth in an anti-influenza receptor binding site antibody

1. Angela M Phillips
2. Daniel P Maurer
3. Caelan Brooks
4. Thomas Dupic
5. Aaron G Schmidt
6. Michael M Desai

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In this valuable study, authors convincingly show that epistasis between mutations plays an important role in the evolution of broadly neutralizing influenza antibodies. Although the data are convincing, several parts of the manuscript require more accurate description.

Reviewed by eLife

Joint inference of evolutionary transitions to self-fertilization and demographic history using whole-genome sequences

1. Stefan Strütt
2. Thibaut Sellinger
3. Sylvain Glémin
4. Aurélien Tellier
5. Stefan Laurent

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This manuscript details the valuable development of population genetics theory that can be used to infer past changes in the selfing rate in natural populations. The inference procedure is solid, although the comparison to previous estimates can be improved, and deeper insight could be gained from further theoretical exploration. The work will be of broad interest to the field of mating systems evolution.

Reviewed by eLife

Microstructural and crystallographic evolution of palaeognath (Aves) eggshells

1. Seung Choi
2. Mark E Hauber
3. Lucas J Legendre
4. Noe-Heon Kim
5. Yuong-Nam Lee
6. David J Varricchio

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This fundamental study represents a significant advance in our understanding of the complex evolutionary history of the eggshell features in one of the main leaving bird lineages, Palaeognathae, with compelling and thoughtfully presented results. The work will be of interest to many biologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists.

Reviewed by eLife

Expansion and loss of sperm nuclear basic protein genes in Drosophila correspond with genetic conflicts between sex chromosomes

1. Ching-Ho Chang
2. Isabel Mejia Natividad
3. Harmit S Malik

Reviewed by Review Commons

Adaptation dynamics between copy-number and point mutations

1. Isabella Tomanek
2. Călin C Guet

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This is an important paper that proposes a novel evolutionary mechanism by which copy-number mutations can slow down the accumulation of point mutations in populations evolving in certain environments. The authors use an evolution experiment in bacteria equipped with a clever reporter system to provide solid evidence that this mechanism indeed operates. This paper will be of broad interest to readers in evolutionary biology and related fields.

Reviewed by eLife

Polygenic adaptation from standing genetic variation allows rapid ecotype formation

1. Nico Fuhrmann
2. Celine Prakash
3. Tobias S Kaiser

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study combines phenotypic analysis, quantitative genetics and population genomics to propose that multiple genes underlie adaptive divergence in a marine midge system linked to tidal rhythm. Genes with a plausible role in perceiving and responding to lunar information are among the loci that most highly differentiate populations with distinct behaviors, but how much of this might be due to demography remains unclear. The evidence from quantitative trait locus is also deemed incomplete at this point.

Reviewed by eLife

Lifespan extension in female mice by early, transient exposure to adult female olfactory cues

1. Michael Garratt
2. Ilkim Erturk
3. Roxann Alonzo
4. Frank Zufall
5. Trese Leinders-Zufall
6. Scott D Pletcher
7. Richard A Miller

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study provides solid evidence for a new intervention, exposure to male vs. female olfactory cues, with an impact on female mouse lifespan. This is interesting to the field of aging research, especially since most described pro-longevity interventions to date tend to work better in male mice. Although the data broadly support the claims, additional analyses showing all probed phenotypes are needed to support all claims.

Reviewed by eLife

Coordinated evolution at amino acid sites of SARS-CoV-2 spike

1. Alexey Dmitrievich Neverov
2. Gennady Fedonin
3. Anfisa Popova
4. Daria Bykova
5. Georgii Bazykin

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Neverov and colleagues analyze patterns of correlated changes of amino acids in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to identify networks of interacting positions using an improved version of the previously validated method. Identifying such patterns of co-evolution is important for a better understanding of spike-protein evolution. The evidence for the identified co-evolving pairs is solid, though the degree of certainty varies among the different identified groups of potentially interacting positions.

Reviewed by eLife

Community diversity is associated with intra-species genetic diversity and gene loss in the human gut microbiome

1. Naïma Jesse Madi
2. Daisy Chen
3. Richard Wolff
4. B Jesse Shapiro
5. Nandita R Garud

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors re-analyzed a previously published dataset and identify patterns suggestive of increased bacterial biodiversity in the gut may creating new niches that lead to gene loss in a focal species and promote generation of more diversity. Two limitations are (i) that sequencing depth may not be sufficient to analyze strain-level diversity and (ii) that the evidence is exclusively based on correlations, and the observed patterns could also be explained by other eco-evolutionary processes. The claims should be supported by a more detailed analysis, and alternative hypotheses that the results do not fully exclude should be discussed. Understanding drivers of diversity in natural microbial communities is an important question that is of central interest to biomedically oriented microbiome scientists, microbial ecologists and evolutionary biologists.

Reviewed by eLife