Evolutionary Biology

Repeated truncation of a modular antimicrobial peptide gene for neural context

1. Mark A. Hanson
2. Bruno Lemaitre

Reviewed by Review Commons

Palatal morphology predicts the paleobiology of early salamanders

1. Jia Jia
2. Guangzhao Li
3. Ke-Qin Gao

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper is of interest to vertebrate paleontologists and other evolutionary biologists interested in the early evolution of amphibians. Using geometric morphometric analysis, the authors demonstrate that both the shape of the palate and several non-shape variables (particularly associated with vomerine teeth) are ecologically informative in early stem- and basal crown-group salamanders. The phylomorphospace analysis reveals that metamorphosis is significant in the expansion of ecomorphospace of the palate in early salamanders. In overall, the main claims of the manuscript are well supported by the data.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Stable antibiotic resistance and rapid human adaptation in livestock-associated MRSA

1. Marta Matuszewska
2. Gemma GR Murray
3. Xiaoliang Ba
4. Rhiannon Wood
5. Mark A Holmes
6. Lucy A Weinert

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Understanding where new strains of microbes come from and how they change over time is important for infection control and prevention. Staphylococcus aureus CC398 is an important strain that 'spills over' from livestock to humans, carrying with it high levels of resistance to antibiotics commonly used in farming. This paper compares more than 1000 genomes of CC398 and concludes that spillover is likely to carry resistance to tetracyclines and other antibiotics into humans that will persist over time.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Modeling the consequences of the dikaryotic life cycle of mushroom-forming fungi on genomic conflict

1. Benjamin Auxier
2. Tamás L Czárán
3. Duur K Aanen

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Unions between equal partners can be destabilized by matings with third parties. In this paper the authors demonstrated that in fungi, 'stable unions' of two nuclei (dikaryons) are predicted to experience costs to vegetative fitness from investment in such mating opportunities. 'Open unions', in which third parties have access to the resources of established partnerships, are evolutionarily highly unstable. This paper will be of general interest to those who study evolutionary conflicts and to fungal geneticists.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Evolutionary safety of death by mutagenesis

1. Gabriela Lobinska
2. Yitzhak Pilpel
3. Martin A Nowak

Reviewed by ScreenIT

More or less deadly? A mathematical model that predicts SARS-CoV-2 evolutionary direction

1. Zhaobin Xu
2. Dongqing Wei
3. Qiangcheng Zeng
4. Hongmei Zhang
5. Yinghui Sun
6. Jacques Demongeot

Reviewed by ScreenIT

The origins and molecular evolution of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 in the UK

1. Verity Hill
2. Louis Du Plessis
3. Thomas P Peacock
4. Dinesh Aggarwal
5. Rachel Colquhoun
6. Alesandro M Carabelli
7. Nicholas Ellaby
8. Eileen Gallagher
9. Natalie Groves
10. Ben Jackson
11. J T McCrone
12. Áine O’Toole
13. Anna Price
14. Theo Sanderson
15. Emily Scher
16. Joel Southgate
17. Erik Volz
18. Wendy S Barclay
19. Jeffrey C Barrett
20. Meera Chand
21. Thomas Connor
22. Ian Goodfellow
23. Ravindra K Gupta
24. Ewan M Harrison
25. Nicholas Loman
26. Richard Myers
27. David L Robertson
28. Oliver G Pybus
29. Andrew Rambaut

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Evolutionary analysis of genomes of SARS-CoV-2-related bat viruses suggests old roots, constant effective population size, and possible increase of fitness

1. Monika Kurpas
2. Roman Jaksik
3. Marek Kimmel

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Mutation patterns in SARS-COV-2 Alpha and Beta variants indicate non-neutral evolution

1. Monika Kurpas
2. Marek Kimmel

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Tradeoff breaking as a model of evolutionary transitions in individuality and limits of the fitness-decoupling metaphor

1. Pierrick Bourrat
2. Guilhem Doulcier
3. Caroline J Rose
4. Paul B Rainey
5. Katrin Hammerschmidt

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Key steps in the evolution of more complex life involve evolutionary transitions in individuality-the origin of new biological entities (i.e., multicellular organisms). This paper presents a novel criterion for measuring when this transition has occurred, via the presence of trade-off breaking adaptations. This work has considerable merit and will be of particular interest for diverse researchers studying transitions in individuality. Some of the author's overarching claims require further clarification.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife