Ecology

Stability and asynchrony of local communities but less so diversity increase regional stability of Inner Mongolian grassland

1. Yonghui Wang
2. Shaopeng Wang
3. Liqing Zhao
4. Cunzhu Liang
5. Bailing Miao
6. Qing Zhang
7. Xiaxia Niu
8. Wenhong Ma
9. Bernhard Schmid

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Wang et al. adapt a new statistical framework for a multi-site multi-year data set to investigate the effects of environmental variables on the temporal stability of plant communities and biomass productivity in Chinese grassland communities. This new framework may well turn out to be one that the larger ecological and ecosystem academic communities, interested in temporal changes of ecological processes across large spatial scales, have been looking for.

  (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

Particle foraging strategies promote microbial diversity in marine environments

1. Ali Ebrahimi
2. Akshit Goyal
3. Otto X Cordero

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript explores how microbial foraging strategies contribute to species coexistence in aquatic environments, and will be of interest to microbial ecologists and theoretical ecologists. Using mathematical modeling, the authors demonstrate that differences in particle detachment rates across bacterial species can promote coexistence. Additional explanation and documentation of methods, along with a discussion of the generality of the results, would strengthen the manuscript and ensure reproducibility.

  (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.)

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Aggregation pheromone 4-vinylanisole promotes the synchrony of sexual maturation in female locusts

1. Dafeng Chen
2. Li Hou
3. Jianing Wei
4. Siyuan Guo
5. Weichan Cui
6. Pengcheng Yang
7. Le Kang
8. Xianhui Wang

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The current study follows up on previous studies from this group, uncovering the role of olfactory signaling in the migratory locust. Specifically, it follows up on a recent report demonstrating that 4-vinylanisole serves as a locust aggregation pheromone. Here, this pheromone is also assigned an instrumental role in control and synchronization of female sexual maturation. This study will be useful for the understanding of swarming behaviour in locusts, and it will also interest those who work on behaviour and its modulation.

  (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.)

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Life history predicts global population responses to the weather in terrestrial mammals

1. John Jackson
2. Christie Le Coeur
3. Owen Jones

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  In this manuscript, the authors use long-term population records for 157 mammal species to investigate how populations respond to annual weather anomalies, whether the responses are explained by species' life-history traits, and whether responses vary among species and biomes. They find that populations of shorter-lived species that have larger litter sizes respond more to weather anomalies than longer-lived species with smaller litter sizes. Their results can help understand and predict how different species may respond to climate change, and ultimately, what makes species more sensitive to climate change.

  (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.)

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Predictors of human-infective RNA virus discovery in the United States, China, and Africa, an ecological study

1. Feifei Zhang
2. Margo Chase-Topping
3. Chuan-Guo Guo
4. Mark EJ Woolhouse

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This study will be of interest to readers in the field of virus discovery. This study attempts to identify predictors of human-infective RNA virus discovery and predict high risk areas in a recent period in the United States, China and Africa using an ecological modelling framework. The study has potential to inform future discovery efforts for human-infective viruses . However it is not clear that key claims of the manuscript are currently fully supported.

  (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.)

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Eco-evolutionary dynamics modulate plant responses to global change depending on plant diversity and species identity

1. Peter Dietrich
2. Jens Schumacher
3. Nico Eisenhauer
4. Christiane Roscher

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The overarching goal of this study was to identify eco-evolutionary feedbacks between plant community diversity and global change drivers. The authors aimed to test the hypothesis that a decline in species richness due to various global change drivers selects for traits that will make species more vulnerable to the further effects of these drivers, amplifying thus the initial diversity decline. This research is of prime importance to botanists, plant ecologists and ecosystem ecologists wanting to understand the effects of global change on plant diversity and productivity.

  (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.)

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Alternate patterns of temperature variation bring about very different disease outcomes at different mean temperatures

1. Charlotte Kunze
2. Pepijn Luijckx
3. Andrew L Jackson
4. Ian Donohue

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Kunze et al. provide a fine experiment to show that both increases in mean temperature and (extreme) variability in temperature regimes have important consequences in host-pathogen interactions. The results presented in this manuscript shed a light on why disease spread models fed by experimental data (commonly obtained in stable environmental conditions) are frequently inaccurate. These results lead us to more realistic understanding of the impacts of climate change in biological species but also identify the need of mechanisms behind species interaction in fluctuating environments/temperatures. This manuscript thus comes timely as the planet is warming, and disease ecologists, limnologists, epidemiologists and physiologists are interested in the consequences.

  (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).

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Both consumptive and non-consumptive effects of predators impact mosquito populations and have implications for disease transmission

1. Marie C Russell
2. Catherine M Herzog
3. Zachary Gajewski
4. Chloe Ramsay
5. Fadoua El Moustaid
6. Michelle V Evans
7. Trishna Desai
8. Nicole L Gottdenker
9. Sara L Hermann
10. Alison G Power
11. Andrew C McCall

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript will be of interest to community ecologists working on the impact of predators on prey populations, as well as disease ecologists interested in understanding the potential role of predators on vector traits. The authors uncovered trends in the research that support beneficial impacts of predators on mosquito traits, from the standpoint of vector control.

  (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 #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

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Gastrointestinal helminths increase Bordetella bronchiseptica shedding and host variation in supershedding

1. Nhat TD Nguyen
2. Ashutosh K Pathak
3. Isabella M Cattadori

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Nguyen et al. examine how helminth co-infection alters shedding from a respiratory bacterial infection (Bordetella bronchiseptica), fitting a model to data from experimentally infected rabbits to link the presence/absence of two helminth species with immune responses (neutrophil and two antibody classes) and bacterial shedding. The authors find a larger frequency of intense bacterial shedding-supershedding events-among helminth-infected rabbits, and model results suggest that triple infection may be associated with faster bacterial replication in the respiratory tract and more rapid shedding of bacteria. Linking immune responses with infection outcomes is of enormous practical interest, as is identifying why certain hosts are superspreaders, but there are some limits to what can be gained from this data set and model framework.

  (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

Gaps in global wildlife trade monitoring leave amphibians vulnerable

1. Alice C Hughes
2. Benjamin Michael Marshall
3. Colin T Strine

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  These are pressing times for nature, standing alone the impact of multiple (human-based) ecological stressors. Wildlife trade is one of these stressors. And, although it is an acute one, it is the easiest solvable global ecological problem. The authors increase dramatically our understanding of legal and illegal trade of amphibians, and offer a wider methodology (however, and importantly, not necessarily a more complex one) to gain a deeper understanding of the causes and consequences) of amphibians' trade. The work will inspire in conservation biologists similar approaches to learn about the trade of other taxa.

  (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.)

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Environmental selection overturns the decay relationship of soil prokaryotic community over geographic distance across grassland biotas

1. Biao Zhang
2. Kai Xue
3. Shutong Zhou
4. Kui Wang
5. Wenjing Liu
6. Cong Xu
7. Lizhen Cui
8. Linfeng Li
9. Qinwei Ran
10. Zongsong Wang
11. Ronghai Hu
12. Yanbin Hao
13. Xiaoyong Cui
14. Yanfen Wang

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This study, which is of interest to students of microbial biogeography, explores the distance-decay relationship for soil prokaryotic communities in alpine and temperate grasslands. Although the experimental scale and conclusions are fairly substantial, there are concerns about the methods, as well as several concerns related to the inferences and presented 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 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

A beta-glucosidase of an insect herbivore determines both toxicity and deterrence of a dandelion defense metabolite

1. Meret Huber
2. Thomas Roder
3. Sandra Irmisch
4. Alexander Riedel
5. Saskia Gablenz
6. Julia Fricke
7. Peter Rahfeld
8. Michael Reichelt
9. Christian Paetz
10. Nicole Liechti
11. Lingfei Hu
12. Zoe Bont
13. Ye Meng
14. Wei Huang
15. Christelle AM Robert
16. Jonathan Gershenzon
17. Matthias Erb

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper is of interest to a broad audience interested in the coevolutionary arms race between plants and their herbivores. In a thoroughly investigated case study, the detoxification strategy of cockchafer larvae towards the major defensive compound of one of their preferred host plants, dandelion, is revealed and effects on the behavior of the larvae are described.

  (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

Living with relatives offsets the harm caused by pathogens in natural populations

1. Hanna M Bensch
2. Emily A O'Connor
3. Charlie Kinahan Cornwallis

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Group living may be beneficial for many reasons, but has costs in terms of increased rates of parasitism, in particular if group members are highly related. In this meta analysis, many original studies on questions related to parasitism, relatedness and group living are brought together in one unifying framework. The authors conclude that living in groups can indeed facilitate the spread of infectious diseases, but that these costs can be overcompensated by the benefits of group living.

  (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 #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

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Rapid spread of a densovirus in a major crop pest following wide-scale adoption of Bt-cotton in China

1. Yutao Xiao
2. Wenjing Li
3. Xianming Yang
4. Pengjun Xu
5. Minghui Jin
6. He Yuan
7. Weigang Zheng
8. Mario Soberón
9. Alejandra Bravo
10. Kenneth Wilson
11. Kongming Wu

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript will be of interest to a broad audience of researchers interested in microbe-insect interactions and how they may affect adaptation to pesticides. It presents data supporting that infection with a mutualistic virus enhances fitness in a moth, and that selection pressure represented by transgenic crops may be driving the spread of this mutualistic infection in Chinese moth populations. Specificially, infection with a densovirus appears to improve the ability of the cotton bollworm to survive on transgenic cotton expressing insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). The widely-grown Bt-transgenic crops control insect pests with great reductions in chemical insecticides, and anything that could reduce their efficacy is of relevance to the agricultural biotechnology community and to growers. This work suggests that virus infection of the insect pest can have unexpected interactions with the ongoing selection for Bt resistance that threatens the sustainability of Bt-transgenic crops. The impact of the work would be clearer if there was a better distinction between pest resistance (the evolution of increased tolerance due to genetic changes in the pest population) and other mechanisms of increased pest tolerance (e.g., virus infection).

  (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

Physiology and ecology combine to determine host and vector importance for Ross River virus

1. Morgan P Kain
2. Eloise B Skinner
3. Andrew F van den Hurk
4. Hamish McCallum
5. Erin A Mordecai

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The manuscript outlines an epidemiological framework to investigate the relative contribution of different hosts and vectors to the initial spread of a zoonotic disease. It focuses on Ross River virus in Brisbane and collates previously published estimates of abundance, biometrics and viral profiles to highlight the most epidemiologically important routes of transmission.

  (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 #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Environmental drivers of disease depend on host community context

1. Fletcher W. Halliday
2. Mikko Jalo
3. Anna-Liisa Laine

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper provides a framework for disentangling the direct vs. indirect effects of environment on disease, which should be of broad interest across domains of ecology, epidemiology and plant biology. The authors validate this framework with a well-designed field study of plant leaf disease across a large elevational gradient. Overall, the data analyses are appropriate, but a few aspects of interpretations could be improved.

  (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.)

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Sex and origin-specific inbreeding effects on flower attractiveness to specialised pollinators

1. Karin Schrieber
2. Sarah Catherine Paul
3. Levke Valena Höche
4. Andrea Cecilia Salas
5. Rabi Didszun
6. Jakob Mößnang
7. Caroline Müller
8. Alexandra Erfmeier
9. Elisabeth Johanna Eilers

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This research is relevant for ecologist and evolutionary biologist in the specific fields of plant conservation, chemical ecology, pollination biology and plant sex evolution. The authors test the interesting hypothesis that traits important for plant-insect interactions are directly affected by inbreeding, which in turn may directly impact the plant-insect interaction. The authors test this prediction in a series of experiments on the plant Silene latifolia, and the results largely support the hypothesis that inbreeding reduces plant attractiveness. In short, the results show that there are indeed strong negative effects of inbreeding on multiple plant/floral traits, but that the effects of these traits do not necessarily translate directly into reduced pollinator visitation rates. The data are of high quality, the sampling of populations was markedly geographically broad and balanced, and the experiments were well implemented, leading to a certain robustness of the results and conclusions.

  (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

Inversion of pheromone preference optimizes foraging in C. elegans

1. Martina Dal Bello
2. Alfonso Pérez-Escudero
3. Frank C Schroeder
4. Jeff Gore

Reviewed by eLife

Relative demographic susceptibility does not explain the extinction chronology of Sahul’s megafauna

1. Corey JA Bradshaw
2. Christopher N Johnson
3. John Llewelyn
4. Vera Weisbecker
5. Giovanni Strona
6. Frédérik Saltré

Reviewed by eLife

Global gradients in intertidal species richness and functional groups

1. Jakob Thyrring
2. Lloyd S Peck

Reviewed by eLife