1. Recurrent mutations drive the rapid evolution of pesticide resistance in the two-spotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae

    This article has 16 authors:
    1. Li-Jun Cao
    2. Jin-Cui Chen
    3. Joshua A Thia
    4. Thomas L Schmidt
    5. Richard Ffrench-Constant
    6. Lin-Xi Zhang
    7. Yu Yang
    8. Meng-Chu Yuan
    9. Jia-Yue Zhang
    10. Xiao-Yang Zhang
    11. Qiong Yang
    12. Ya-Jun Gong
    13. Hu Li
    14. Xuexin Chen
    15. Ary A Hoffmann
    16. Shu-Jun Wei
    This article has been curated by 1 group:
    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This study provides important insights into the evolution of pesticide resistance, demonstrating that resistance can arise rapidly and repeatedly, which complements prior work on parallel evolution across species. The combination of extensive temporal sampling in the field, experimental evolution, and genomics makes for compelling findings. The authors are to be commended for acknowledging the main limitations of their study in the Discussion. Framing the work in a broader context of resistance beyond arthropod pests would further increase the appeal of the study, which is of relevance for both agronomic practitioners and evolutionary biologists.

    Reviewed by eLife

    This article has 7 evaluationsAppears in 1 listLatest version Latest activity
  2. Ancient trans-species polymorphism at the Major Histocompatibility Complex in primates

    This article has 2 authors:
    1. Alyssa Lyn Fortier
    2. Jonathan K Pritchard
    This article has been curated by 1 group:
    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important manuscript presents a thorough analysis of trans-specific polymorphism (TSP) in Major Histocompatibility Complex gene families across primates. The analysis makes the most of currently available genomic data and methods to substantially increase the amount and evolutionary time that TSPs can be observed. Both false negative TSPs due to missing genes at the assembly and/or annotation level, as well as false positives due to read mismapping with missing paralogs, are well assessed and discussed. Overall the evidence provided is compelling, and the manuscript clearly delineates the path for future progress on the topic.

    Reviewed by eLife

    This article has 11 evaluationsAppears in 1 listLatest version Latest activity
  3. Species biology and demographic history determines species vulnerability to climate change in tropical island endemic birds

    This article has 6 authors:
    1. Ratnesh Karjee
    2. Vikram Iyer
    3. Durbadal Chatterjee
    4. Rajasri Ray
    5. Kritika M Garg
    6. Balaji Chattopadhyay
    This article has been curated by 1 group:
    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      Tropical single-island endemic bird populations are particularly vulnerable to climate change. The authors investigate genetic evidence of how such species dealt with climate changes in the past as a possible predictor for how they will respond to change in the future, which could provide an important example for the fields of conservation genetics and island biogeography. The authors' integration of genomics and habitat modeling is commendable, but we find that the support for their conclusions is incomplete: at times, the results presented appear to contradict each other, the authors do not fully account for key variables, and the limited taxonomic scope may cause problematic biases for the conclusions.

    Reviewed by eLife

    This article has 4 evaluationsAppears in 1 listLatest version Latest activity
  4. Divergent C. elegans toxin alleles are suppressed by distinct mechanisms

    This article has 9 authors:
    1. Stefan Zdraljevic
    2. Laura Walter-McNeill
    3. Giancarlo N Bruni
    4. Joshua S Bloom
    5. Daniel HW Leighton
    6. JB Collins
    7. Heriberto Marquez
    8. Noah Alexander
    9. Leonid Kruglyak
    This article has been curated by 1 group:
    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This study provides valuable insights into a new toxin-antidote element in C. elegans, the first naturally occurring unlinked toxin-antidote system where endogenous small RNA pathways post-transcriptionally suppress the toxin. The strength of evidence is solid, using a combination of genomic and experimental methods. Enthusiasm, however, is tempered by its reliance on meta-analysis of existing data sets and limited experimental evaluation.

    Reviewed by eLife

    This article has 3 evaluationsAppears in 1 listLatest version Latest activity
  5. Minus the Error: Testing for Positive Selection in the Presence of Residual Alignment Errors

    This article has 9 authors:
    1. Avery Selberg
    2. Nathan L Clark
    3. Timothy B Sackton
    4. Spencer V Muse
    5. Alexander G Lucaci
    6. Steven Weaver
    7. Anton Nekrutenko
    8. Maria Chikina
    9. Sergei L Kosakovsky Pond
    This article has been curated by 1 group:
    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      Alignment and sequencing errors are a major concern in molecular evolution, and this valuable study represents a welcome improvement for genome-wide scans of positive selection. This new method seems to perform well and is generally convincing, although the evidence could be made more direct and more complete through additional simulations to determine the extent to which alignment errors are being properly captured.

    Reviewed by eLife

    This article has 4 evaluationsAppears in 1 listLatest version Latest activity
  6. Horizontally transferred cell-free chromatin particles function as autonomous ‘satellite genomes’ and vehicles for transposable elements within host cells

    This article has 10 authors:
    1. Soumita Banerjee
    2. Soniya Sanjay Shende
    3. Laxmi Kata
    4. Relestina Simon Lopes
    5. Swathika Praveen
    6. Ruchi Joshi
    7. Naveen Kumar Khare
    8. Gorantla V Raghuram
    9. Snehal Shabrish
    10. Indraneel Mittra
    This article has been curated by 1 group:
    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      The authors examine the effect of cell-free chromatin particles (cfChPs) derived from human serum or from dying human cells on mouse cells in culture and propose that these cfChPs can serve as vehicles for cell-to-cell active transfer of foreign genetic elements. The work presented in this paper is intriguing and potentially important, but it is incomplete. At this stage, the claim that horizontal gene transfer can occur via cfChPs is not well supported because it is only based on evidence from one type of methodological approach (immunofluorescence and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH)) and is not validated by whole genome sequencing.

    Reviewed by eLife

    This article has 7 evaluationsAppears in 1 listLatest version Latest activity
  7. Meaning-making behavior in a small-brained hominin, Homo naledi, from the late Pleistocene: contexts and evolutionary implications

    This article has 6 authors:
    1. Agustín Fuentes
    2. Marc Kissel
    3. Penny Spikins
    4. Keneiloe Molopyane
    5. John Hawks
    6. Lee R Berger
    This article has been curated by 1 group:
    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This paper discusses the cognitive implications of potential intentional burial, wall engraving creation, and fire as light source use behaviors by relatively small-brained Homo naledi hominins. The discussion presented in the paper is valuable theoretically in its healthy questioning of prior assumptions concerning the socio-biological constraints of hominin meaning-making behavior. The discussion also contributes practically given that these behaviors have been ascribed to Homo naledi in two associated papers. Still, the strength of evidence in this contribution relies on the validity of the conclusions from the two associated papers, which remain actively questioned. The ultimate assessment of this work will vary among individual readers depending on how they view this debate, but if the conclusions from the associated papers hold up, the conclusions in the current paper can be considered solid.

    Reviewed by eLife

    This article has 8 evaluationsAppears in 1 listLatest version Latest activity
  8. Effective population size does not explain long-term variation in genome size and transposable element content in animals

    This article has 5 authors:
    1. Alba Marino
    2. Gautier Debaecker
    3. Anna-Sophie Fiston-Lavier
    4. Annabelle Haudry
    5. Benoit Nabholz
    This article has been curated by 1 group:
    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important study offers a powerful empirical test of a highly influential hypothesis in population genetics. It incorporates a large number of animal genomes spanning a broad phylogenetic spectrum and treats them in a rigorous unified pipeline, providing the convincing negative result that effective population size scales neither with the content of transposable elements nor with overall genome size. These observations demonstrate that there is still no simple, global hypothesis that can explain the observed variation in transposable element content and genome size in animals.

    Reviewed by eLife

    This article has 9 evaluationsAppears in 1 listLatest version Latest activity
  9. Trophic eggs affect caste determination in the ant Pogonomyrmex rugosus

    This article has 3 authors:
    1. Eléonore Genzoni
    2. Tanja Schwander
    3. Laurent Keller
    This article has been curated by 1 group:
    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important manuscript by Genzoni et al. reports the striking discovery of a regulatory role for trophic eggs in ant caste determination. Prior to this study, trophic eggs were widely assumed to play only a nutritional role in the colony, but this compelling study shows that trophic eggs can suppress queen development, and therefore regulate caste determination in specific social contexts.

    Reviewed by eLife

    This article has 11 evaluationsAppears in 1 listLatest version Latest activity
  10. The general version of Hamilton’s rule

    This article has 1 author:
    1. Matthijs van Veelen
    This article has been curated by 1 group:
    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      Kin selection and inclusive fitness have generated significant controversy. This paper reconsiders the general form of Hamilton's rule in which benefits and costs are defined as regression coefficients, with higher-order coefficients being added to accommodate non-linear interactions. The paper is a landmark contribution to the field with compelling, systematic analysis, giving clarity to long-standing debates.

    Reviewed by eLife

    This article has 7 evaluationsAppears in 1 listLatest version Latest activity
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