Evolutionary Biology

Unique protein features of SARS-CoV-2 relative to other Sarbecoviruses

1. Matthew Cotten
2. David L. Robertson
3. My V.T. Phan

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Tracking Changes in SARS-CoV-2 Spike: Evidence that D614G Increases Infectivity of the COVID-19 Virus

1. Bette Korber
2. Will M. Fischer
3. Sandrasegaram Gnanakaran
4. Hyejin Yoon
5. James Theiler
6. Werner Abfalterer
7. Nick Hengartner
8. Elena E. Giorgi
9. Tanmoy Bhattacharya
10. Brian Foley
11. Kathryn M. Hastie
12. Matthew D. Parker
13. David G. Partridge
14. Cariad M. Evans
15. Timothy M. Freeman
16. Thushan I. de Silva
17. Adrienne Angyal
18. Rebecca L. Brown
19. Laura Carrilero
20. Luke R. Green
21. Danielle C. Groves
22. Katie J. Johnson
23. Alexander J. Keeley
24. Benjamin B. Lindsey
25. Paul J. Parsons
26. Mohammad Raza
27. Sarah Rowland-Jones
28. Nikki Smith
29. Rachel M. Tucker
30. Dennis Wang
31. Matthew D. Wyles
32. Charlene McDanal
33. Lautaro G. Perez
34. Haili Tang
35. Alex Moon-Walker
36. Sean P. Whelan
37. Celia C. LaBranche
38. Erica O. Saphire
39. David C. Montefiori

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Carotenoid-dependent plumage coloration is associated with reduced male care in passerine birds

1. Verónica A. Rincón-Rubio
2. Tamás Székely
3. András Liker
4. Alejandro Gonzalez-Voyer

Reviewed by PREreview

Assessing uncertainty in the rooting of the SARS-CoV-2 phylogeny

1. Lenore Pipes
2. Hongru Wang
3. John P. Huelsenbeck
4. Rasmus Nielsen

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Strong evolutionary convergence of receptor-binding protein spike between COVID-19 and SARS-related coronaviruses

1. Yonghua Wu

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Natural selection in the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in bats, not humans, created a highly capable human pathogen

1. Oscar A. MacLean
2. Spyros Lytras
3. Steven Weaver
4. Joshua B. Singer
5. Maciej F. Boni
6. Philippe Lemey
7. Sergei L. Kosakovsky Pond
8. David L. Robertson

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Natural Selection is Unlikely to Explain Why Species Get a Thin Slice of π

1. Vince Buffalo

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The manuscript revisits an enduring and central question in population genetics known as Lewontin's paradox: that in contrast to the prediction of the field's null model, which suggests that levels of neutral genetic diversity should be proportional to the census population size, in reality, census population sizes span several orders of magnitude more than the approximately three orders of magnitude spanned by levels of genetic diversity. The manuscript provides a nice review of previous work as well as thought-provoking novel analyses. There are also several issues that make it difficult to interpret the new results.

  (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 #4 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Understanding the evolution of multiple drug resistance in structured populations

1. David V. McLeod
2. Sylvain Gandon

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper addresses the important question of multidrug resistance evolution, which is of both theoretical and applied interest. The authors efforts to carefully distinguish population and metapopulation linkage disequilibrium and to develop a framework to rigorously analyze the relationship between the two has promise, although we have noted concerns about the modeling framework used and results interpretation. If these concerns can be sufficiently addressed, then this paper has the potential to represent a clear advance in our understanding of microbial population dynamics.

  (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 names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Rampant tooth loss across 200 million years of frog evolution

1. Daniel J. Paluh
2. Karina Riddell
3. Catherine M. Early
4. Maggie M. Hantak
5. Gregory F.M. Jongsma
6. Rachel M. Keeffe
7. Fernanda Magalhães Silva
8. Stuart V. Nielsen
9. María Camila Vallejo-Pareja
10. Edward L. Stanley
11. David C. Blackburn

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript will find a broad audience in the fields of evolutionary and developmental biology, especially herpetology, systematics, and those interested in the evolutionary history of vertebrate teeth. The expansive dataset presented by the authors has allowed for rigorous computational analyses yielding new insight into the evolutionary history of teeth in frogs, which is a topic that has received little attention from the scientific community. The resulting data largely support the key claims of the manuscript.

  (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. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Glycan-Based Shaping Of The Microbiota During Primate Evolution

1. Sumnima Singh
2. Patricia Bastos-Amador
3. Jessica A. Thompson
4. Mauro Truglio
5. Bahtiyar Yilmaz
6. Silvia Cardoso
7. Daniel Sobral
8. Miguel P. Soares

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  30 million years ago the ancestors of Old World primates lost the ability to produce alpha-gal due to the fixation of several loss-of-function mutations in the GGTA1 gene. The evolutionary advantage of such loss remains elusive. Here, the authors provide additional insights into the pleiotropic role of ggta1 in shaping the gut microbiota, immune function, susceptibility to sepsis, and eventual fitness advantage.

  (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