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06 Oct 2022
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Evolution of sperm morphology in a crustacean genus with fertilization inside an open brood pouch.

Evolution of sperm morphology in Daphnia within a phyologenetic context

Recommended by based on reviews by Renate Matzke-Karasz and 1 anonymous reviewer

In this study sperm morphology is studied in 15 Daphnia species and the morphological data are mapped on a Daphnia phylogeny. The authors found that despite the internal fertilization mode, Daphnia have among the smallest sperm recorded, as would be expected with external fertilization. The authors also conclude that increase in sperm length has evolved twice, that sperm encapsulation has been lost in a clade, and that this clade has very polymorphic sperm with long, and often numerous, filopodia.

Daphnia is an interesting model to study sperm morphology because the biology of sexual reproduction is often ignored in (cyclical) parthenogenetic species. Daphnia is part of the very diverse and successful group of cladocerans with cyclical parthenogenetic reproduction. The success of this reproduction mode is reflected in the known 620 species that radiated within this order, this is more than half of the known Branchiopod species diversity and the estimated number of cladoceran species is even two to four times higher (Forró et al. 2008). Looking at this particular model with a good phylogeny and some particularity in the mode of fertilization/reproduction, has thus a large value. Most Daphnia species are cyclical parthenogenetic and switch between sexual and asexual reproduction depending on the environmental conditions. Within the genus Daphnia, evolution to obligate asexuality has evolved in at least four independent occasions by three different mechanisms: (i) obligate parthenogenesis through hybridisation with or without polyploidy, (ii) asexuality has been acquired de novo in some populations and (iii) in certain lineages females reproduce by obligate parthenogenesis, whereas the clonally propagated males produce functional haploid sperm that allows them to breed with sexual females of normal cyclically parthenogenetic lineages (more on this in Decaestecker et al. 2009).

This study is made in the context of a body of research on the evolution of one of the most fundamental and taxonomically diverse cell types. There is surprisingly little known about the adaptive value underlying their morphology because it is very difficult to test this experimentally.  Studying sperm morphology across species is interesting to study evolution itself because it is a "simple trait". As the authors state: The understanding of the adaptive value of sperm morphology, such as length and shape, remains largely incomplete (Lüpold & Pitnick, 2018). Based on phylogenetic analyses across the animal kingdom, the general rule seems to be that fertilization mode (i.e. whether eggs are fertilized within or outside the female) is a key predictor of sperm length (Kahrl et al., 2021). There is a trade-off between sperm number and length (Immler et al., 2011). This study reports on one of the smallest sperm recorded despite the fertilization being internal. The brood pouch in Daphnia is an interesting particularity as fertilisation occurs internally, but it is not disconnected from the environment. It is also remarkable that there are two independent evolution lines of sperm size in this group. It suggests that those traits have an adaptive value. 

References

Decaestecker E, De Meester L, Mergeay J (2009) Cyclical Parthenogenesis in Daphnia: Sexual Versus Asexual Reproduction. In: Lost Sex: The Evolutionary Biology of Parthenogenesis (eds Schön I, Martens K, Dijk P), pp. 295–316. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2770-2_15

Duneau David, Möst M, Ebert D (2022) Evolution of sperm morphology in a crustacean genus with fertilization inside an open brood pouch. bioRxiv, 2020.01.31.929414, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.31.929414

Forró L, Korovchinsky NM, Kotov AA, Petrusek A (2008) Global diversity of cladocerans (Cladocera; Crustacea) in freshwater. Hydrobiologia, 595, 177–184. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-007-9013-5

Immler S, Pitnick S, Parker GA, Durrant KL, Lüpold S, Calhim S, Birkhead TR (2011) Resolving variation in the reproductive tradeoff between sperm size and number. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 5325–5330. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1009059108

Kahrl AF, Snook RR, Fitzpatrick JL (2021) Fertilization mode drives sperm length evolution across the animal tree of life. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5, 1153–1164. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01488-y

Lüpold S, Pitnick S (2018) Sperm form and function: what do we know about the role of sexual selection? Reproduction, 155, R229–R243. https://doi.org/10.1530/REP-17-0536

Evolution of sperm morphology in a crustacean genus with fertilization inside an open brood pouch.Duneau, David; Moest, Markus; Ebert, Dieter<p style="text-align: justify;">Sperm is the most fundamental male reproductive feature. It serves the fertilization of eggs and evolves under sexual selection. Two components of sperm are of particular interest, their number and their morphology....Evolutionary Ecology, Morphological Evolution, Reproduction and Sex, Sexual SelectionEllen Decaestecker2020-05-30 22:54:15 View
13 Sep 2019
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Deceptive combined effects of short allele dominance and stuttering: an example with Ixodes scapularis, the main vector of Lyme disease in the U.S.A.

New curation method for microsatellite markers improves population genetics analyses

Recommended by ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by Eric Petit, Martin Husemann ? and 2 anonymous reviewers

Genetic markers are used for in modern population genetics/genomics to uncover the past neutral and selective history of population and species. Besides Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) obtained from whole genome data, microsatellites (or Short Tandem Repeats, SSR) have been common markers of choice in numerous population genetics studies of non-model species with large sample sizes [1]. Microsatellites can be used to uncover and draw inference of the past population demography (e.g. expansion, decline, bottlenecks…), population split, population structure and gene flow, but also life history traits and modes of reproduction (e.g. [2,3]). These markers are widely used in conservation genetics [4] or to study parasites or disease vectors [5]. Microsatellites do show higher mutation rate than SNPs increasing, on the one hand, the statistical power to infer recent events (for example crop domestication, [2,3]), while, on the other hand, decreasing their statistical power over longer time scales due to homoplasy [6].
To perform such analyses, however, an excellent and reliable quality of data is required. As emphasized in the article by De Meeûs et al. [7] three main issues do bias the observed heterozygosity at microsatellites: null alleles, short allele dominance (SAD) and stuttering. These originates from poor PCR amplification. As a result, an excess of homozygosity is observed at the microsatellite loci leading to overestimation of the variation statistics FIS and FST as well as increased linage disequilibrium (LD). For null alleles, several methods and software do help to reduce the bias, and in the present study, De Meeûs et al. [7] propose a way to tackle issues with SAD and stuttering.
The authors study a dataset consisting of 387 samples from 61 subsamples genotyped at nine loci of the species Ixodes scapularis, i.e. ticks transmitting the Lyme disease. Based on correlation methods and FST, FIS they can uncover null alleles and SAD. Stuttering is detected by evaluating the heterozygote deficit between alleles displaying a single repeat difference. Without correction, six loci are affected by one of these amplification problems generating a large deficit of heterozygotes (measured by significant FIS and FST) remaining so after correction for the false discovery rate (FDR). These results would be classically interpreted as a strong Wahlund effect and/or selection at several loci.
After correcting for null alleles, the authors apply two novel corrections: 1) a re-examination of the chromatograms reveals previously disregarded larger alleles thus decreasing SAD, and 2) pooling alleles close in size decreasing stuttering. The corrected dataset shows then a significant excess of heterozygotes as could be expected in a dioecious species with strong population structure. The FDR correction removes then the significant excess of homozygotes and LD between pairs of loci. FST on the cured dataset is used to demonstrate the strong population structure and small effective subpopulation sizes. This is confirmed by a clustering analysis using discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC).
While based on a specific dataset of ticks from different populations sampled across the USA, the generality of the authors’ approach is presented in Figure 6 in which they provide a step by step flowchart to cure microsatellite datasets from null alleles, SAD and stuttering. Several criteria based on FIS, FST and LD between loci are used as decision keys in the flowchart. An excel file is also provided as help for the curation steps. This study and the proposed methodology are thus extremely useful for all population geneticists working on non-model species with large number of samples genotyped at microsatellite markers. The method not only allows more accurate estimates of heterozygosity but also prevents the thinning of datasets due to the removal of problematic loci. As a follow-up and extension of this work, an exhaustive simulation study could investigate the influence of these data quality issues on past demographic and population structure inference under a wide range of scenarios. This would allow to quantify the current biases in the literature and the robustness of the methodology devised by De Meeûs et al. [7].

References

[1] Jarne, P., and Lagoda, P. J. (1996). Microsatellites, from molecules to populations and back. Trends in ecology & evolution, 11(10), 424-429. doi: 10.1016/0169-5347(96)10049-5
[2] Cornille, A., Giraud, T., Bellard, C., Tellier, A., Le Cam, B., Smulders, M. J. M., Kleinschmit, J., Roldan-Ruiz, I. and Gladieux, P. (2013). Postglacial recolonization history of the E uropean crabapple (Malus sylvestris M ill.), a wild contributor to the domesticated apple. Molecular Ecology, 22(8), 2249-2263. doi: 10.1111/mec.12231
[3] Parat, F., Schwertfirm, G., Rudolph, U., Miedaner, T., Korzun, V., Bauer, E., Schön C.-C. and Tellier, A. (2016). Geography and end use drive the diversification of worldwide winter rye populations. Molecular ecology, 25(2), 500-514. doi: 10.1111/mec.13495
[4] Broquet, T., Ménard, N., & Petit, E. (2007). Noninvasive population genetics: a review of sample source, diet, fragment length and microsatellite motif effects on amplification success and genotyping error rates. Conservation Genetics, 8(1), 249-260. doi: 10.1007/s10592-006-9146-5
[5] Koffi, M., De Meeûs, T., Séré, M., Bucheton, B., Simo, G., Njiokou, F., Salim, B., Kaboré, J., MacLeod, A., Camara, M., Solano, P., Belem, A. M. G. and Jamonneau, V. (2015). Population genetics and reproductive strategies of African trypanosomes: revisiting available published data. PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 9(10), e0003985. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0003985
[6] Estoup, A., Jarne, P., & Cornuet, J. M. (2002). Homoplasy and mutation model at microsatellite loci and their consequences for population genetics analysis. Molecular ecology, 11(9), 1591-1604. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-294X.2002.01576.x
[7] De Meeûs, T., Chan, C. T., Ludwig, J. M., Tsao, J. I., Patel, J., Bhagatwala, J., and Beati, L. (2019). Deceptive combined effects of short allele dominance and stuttering: an example with Ixodes scapularis, the main vector of Lyme disease in the USA. bioRxiv, 622373, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community In Evolutionary Biology. doi: 10.1101/622373

Deceptive combined effects of short allele dominance and stuttering: an example with Ixodes scapularis, the main vector of Lyme disease in the U.S.A.Thierry De Meeûs, Cynthia T. Chan, John M. Ludwig, Jean I. Tsao, Jaymin Patel, Jigar Bhagatwala, and Lorenza Beati<p>Null alleles, short allele dominance (SAD), and stuttering increase the perceived relative inbreeding of individuals and subpopulations as measured by Wright’s FIS and FST. Ascertainment bias, due to such amplifying problems are usually caused ...Evolutionary Ecology, Other, Population Genetics / GenomicsAurelien Tellier2019-05-02 20:52:08 View
12 Nov 2021
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How ancient forest fragmentation and riparian connectivity generate high levels of genetic diversity in a micro-endemic Malagasy tree

An ancient age of open-canopy landscapes in northern Madagascar? Evidence from the population genetic structure of a forest tree

Recommended by ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by Katharina Budde and Yurena Arjona

We currently live in the Anthropocene, the geological age characterized by a profound impact of human populations in the ecosystems and the environment. While there is little doubt about the action of humans in the shaping of present landscapes, it can be difficult to determine what the state of those landscapes was before humans started to modify them. This is the case of the Madagascar grasslands, whose origins have been debated with arguments proposing them either as anthropogenic, created with the arrival of humans around 2000BP, or as ancient features of the natural landscape with a forest fragmentation process due to environmental changes pre-dating human arrival [e.g. 1,2]. One way to clarify this question is through the genetic study of native species. Population continuity and fragmentation along time shape the structure of the genetic diversity in space. Species living in a uniform continuous habitat are expected to show genetic structuring determined only by geographical distance. Recent changes of the habitat can take many generations to reshape that genetic structure [3]. Thus, we expect genetic structure to reflect ancient features of the landscape.

The work by Jordi Salmona and collaborators [4] studies the factors determining the population genetic structure of the Malagasy spiny olive (Noronhia spinifolia). This narrow endemic species is distributed in the discontinuous forest patches of the Loky-Manambato region (northern Madagascar). Jordi Salmona and collaborators genotyped 72 individuals distributed across the species distribution with restriction associated DNA sequencing and organelle microsatellite markers. Then, they studied the population genetic structure of the species. Using isolation-by-resistance models [5], they tested the influence of several landscape features (forest cover, roads, rivers, slope, etc.) on the connectivity between populations. Maternally inherited loci (chloroplast and mitochondria) and bi-parentally inherited loci (nuclear), were analysed separately in an attempt to identify the role of pollen and seed dispersal in the connectivity of populations.

Despite the small distribution of the species, Jordi Salmona and collaborators [4] found remarkable levels of genetic diversity. The spatial structure of this diversity was found to be mainly explained by the forest cover of the landscape, suggesting that the landscape has been composed by patches of forests and grasslands for a long time. The main role of forest cover for the connectivity among populations also highlights the importance of riparian forest as dispersal corridors. Finally, differences between organelle and nuclear markers were not enough to establish any strong conclusion about the differences between pollen and seed dispersal.

The results presented by Jordi Salmona and collaborators [4] contribute to the understanding of the history and ecology of understudied Madagascar ecosystems. Previous population genetic studies  in some forest-dwelling mammals have been interpreted as supporting an old age for the fragmented landscapes in northern Madagascar [e.g. 1,6]. To my knowledge, this is the first study on a tree species. While this work might not completely settle the debate, it emphasizes the importance of studying a diversity of species to understand the biogeographic dynamics of a region.

References

1. Quéméré, E., X. Amelot, J. Pierson, B. Crouau-Roy, L. Chikhi (2012) Genetic data suggest a natural prehuman origin of open habitats in northern Madagascar and question the deforestation narrative in this region. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America 109: 13028–13033. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1200153109
2. Joseph, G.S., C.L. Seymour (2020) Madagascan highlands: originally woodland and forest containing endemic grasses, not grazing-adapted grassland. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 287: 20201956. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.1956
3. Landguth, E.L., S.A. Cushman, M.K. Schwartz, K.S. McKelvey, M. Murphy, G. Luikart (2010) Quantifying the lag time to detect barriers in landscape genetics. Molecular Ecology 19: 4179–
4191. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04808.x
4. Salmona J., Dresen A, Ranaivoson AE, Manzi S, Pors BL, Hong-Wa C, Razanatsoa J, Andriaholinirina NV, Rasoloharijaona S, Vavitsara M-E, Besnard G (2021) How ancient forest fragmentation and riparian connectivity generate high levels of genetic diversity in a micro-endemic Malagasy tree. bioRxiv, 2020.11.25.394544, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.25.394544
5. McRae, B.H. (2006) Isolation by resistance. Evolution 60: 1551–1561. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0014-3820.2006.tb00500.x
6. Rakotoarisoa J.-E., M. Raheriarisena, S.M. Goodman (2013) Late Quaternary climatic vegetational shifts in an ecological transition zone of northern Madagascar: insights from genetic analyses of two endemic rodent species. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 26: 1019–1034. https://doi.org/10.1111/jeb.12116

How ancient forest fragmentation and riparian connectivity generate high levels of genetic diversity in a micro-endemic Malagasy treeJordi Salmona, Axel Dresen, Anicet E. Ranaivoson, Sophie Manzi, Barbara Le Pors, Cynthia Hong-Wa, Jacqueline Razanatsoa, Nicole V. Andriaholinirina, Solofonirina Rasoloharijaona, Marie-Elodie Vavitsara, Guillaume Besnard<p>Understanding landscape changes is central to predicting evolutionary trajectories and defining conservation practices. While human-driven deforestation is intense throughout Madagascar, exception in areas like the Loky-Manambato region (North)...Evolutionary Ecology, Phylogeography & Biogeography, Population Genetics / GenomicsMiguel de Navascués2020-11-27 09:07:21 View
07 Nov 2019
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New insights into the population genetics of partially clonal organisms: when seagrass data meet theoretical expectations

Inferring rates of clonal versus sexual reproduction from population genetics data

Recommended by based on reviews by Ludwig TRIEST, Stacy Krueger-Hadfield and 1 anonymous reviewer

In partially clonal organisms, genetic markers are often used to characterize the genotypic diversity of populations and infer thereof the relative importance of clonal versus sexual reproduction. Most studies report a measure of genotypic diversity based on a ratio, R, of the number of distinct multilocus genotypes over the sample size, and qualitatively interpret high / low R as indicating the prevalence of sexual / clonal reproduction. However, a theoretical framework allowing to quantify the relative rates of clonal versus sexual reproduction from genotypic diversity is still lacking, except using temporal sampling. Moreover, R is intrinsically highly dependent on sample size and sample design, while alternative measures of genotypic diversity are more robust to sample size, like D*, which is equivalent to the Gini-Simpson diversity index applied to multilocus genotypes. Another potential indicator of reproductive strategies is the inbreeding coefficient, Fis, because population genetics theory predicts that clonal reproduction should lead to negative Fis, at least when the sexual reproduction component occurs through random mating. Taking advantage of this prediction, Arnaud-Haond et al. [1] reanalysed genetic data from 165 populations of four partially clonal seagrass species sampled in a standardized way. They found positive correlations between Fis and both R and D* within each species, reflecting variation in the relative rates of sexual versus clonal reproduction among populations. Moreover, the differences of mean genotypic diversity and Fis values among species were also consistent with their known differences in reproductive strategies. Arnaud-Haond et al. [1] also conclude that previous works based on the interpretation of R generally lead to underestimate the prevalence of clonality in seagrasses. Arnaud-Haond et al. [1] confirm experimentally that Fis merits to be interpreted more properly than usually done when inferring rates of clonal reproduction from population genetics data of species reproducing both sexually and clonally. An advantage of Fis is that it is much less affected by sample size than R, and thus should be more reliable when comparing studies differing in sample design. Hence, when the rate of clonal reproduction becomes significant, we expect Fis < 0 and D* < 1. I expect these two indicators of clonality to be complementary because they rely on different consequences of clonality on pattern of genetic variation. Nevertheless, both measures can be affected by other factors. For example, null alleles, selfing or biparental inbreeding can pull Fis upwards, potentially eliminating the signature of clonal reproduction. Similarly, D* (and other measures of genotypic diversity) can be low because the polymorphism of the genetic markers used is too limited or because sexual reproduction often occurs through selfing, eventually resulting in highly similar homozygous genotypes.
The work of Arnaud-Haond et al. [1] shows that the populations genetics of partially clonal organisms should be better studied, an endeavour encompassed in a companion paper using numerical simulations [2]. A further step that remains to be accomplished is to build a mathematical framework for developing estimators of rates of clonal versus sexual reproduction based on genotypic diversity.

References

[1] Arnaud-Haond, S., Stoeckel, S., and Bailleul, D. (2019). New insights into the population genetics of partially clonal organisms: when seagrass data meet theoretical expectations. ArXiv:1902.10240 [q-Bio], v6 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/1902.10240
[2] Stoeckel, S., Porro, B., and Arnaud-Haond, S. (2019). The discernible and hidden effects of clonality on the genotypic and genetic states of populations: improving our estimation of clonal rates. ArXiv:1902.09365 [q-Bio], v4 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/1902.09365

New insights into the population genetics of partially clonal organisms: when seagrass data meet theoretical expectationsArnaud-Haond, Sophie, Stoeckel, Solenn, and Bailleul, Diane<p>Seagrass meadows are among the most important coastal ecosystems, in terms of both spatial extent and ecosystem services, but they are also declining worldwide. Understanding the drivers of seagrass meadow dynamics is essential for designing so...Evolutionary Ecology, Population Genetics / Genomics, Reproduction and SexOlivier J Hardy2019-03-01 21:57:34 View
06 Jul 2018
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Variation in competitive ability with mating system, ploidy and range expansion in four Capsella species

When ecology meets genetics: Towards an integrated understanding of mating system transitions and diversity

Recommended by and based on reviews by Yaniv Brandvain, Henrique Teotonio and 1 anonymous reviewer

In the 19th century, C. Darwin and F. Delpino engaged in a debate about the success of species with different reproduction modes, with the later favouring the idea that monoecious plants capable of autonomous selfing could spread more easily than dioecious plants (or self-incompatible hermaphroditic plants) if cross-pollination opportunities were limited [1]. Since then, debate has never faded about how natural selection is responsible for transitions to selfing and can explain the diversity and distribution of reproduction modes we observe in the natural world [2, 3].
Explanations for mating systems diversity, and transitions to selfing in particular, generally fall into two categories: either genetic or ecological. On the genetic side, many theoretical works showed a critical role for mutation load and inbreeding depression, transmission advantage and reproductive assurance in the evolution of selfing, e.g. [4]. Many experimental works were conducted to test theoretical hypotheses and predictions, especially regarding the magnitude of inbreeding depression; see [5] for a review. Ecologically, the presence of selfing populations is usually correlated with fragmented and harsh habitats, on the periphery of ancestral outcrossing populations. The cause of this distribution could be that selfers are better dispersers and colonizers than outcrossers, or variations in other life-history traits [6]. Yet, few experiments were run to assess whether selfing species or populations have effectively different ecological characteristics, and even scarcer are experiments evaluating both the roles of mutational load and life-history traits evolution. This is the aim of the present study by X. Yang et al [7].
The study of Yang et al [7], together with that of Petrone Mendoza et al. [8], supervised by S. Glémin and M. Lascoux, is probably one of the first to conduct experiments where the competitive abilities are compared between and within species. Using 4 species of the Capsella genus, annual plants from the mustard family, they tested the theoretical predictions that i) the transition from outcrossing to selfing resulted in reduced competitive ability at higher densities, because of the accumulation of deleterious mutations and/or the evolution of life-history traits in an open habitat and a colonization/dispersal trade-off; ii) that reduced competitive ability of selfers should be less pronounced in polyploid then diploid species because the effect of partially recessive deleterious mutations would be buffered; and iii) that competitive ability of selfers should decline with historical range expansion because of the expansion load [9].
Of the 4 Capsella species studied, only one of them, presumably the ancestral, is a diploid outcrosser with a small distribution but large population sizes. The three other species are selfers, two diploids with independent histories of transitions from outcrossing, and another, tetraploid, resulting from a recent hybridization between one of the diploid selfer and the diploid outcrossing ancestor. Many accessions from each species were sampled and individuals assayed for their competitive ability against a tester species or alone, for vegetative and reproductive traits. The measured vegetative traits (rosette surface at two stages, growth rate and flowering probability) showed no differentiation between selfers and outcrossers. To the contrary, reproductive traits (number of flowers) followed theoretical predictions: selfing species are more sensitive to competition than the outcrossing species, with polyploid selfing species being intermediate between the diploid selfers and the diploid outcrosser, and within the tetraploid selfing species (where sampling was quite significant across a large geographical range) sensitivity to competition increased with range expansion.
The study of Yang et al. [7] suffers from several limitations, such that alternative explanations cannot be discarded in the absence of further experimental data. They nonetheless provide the reader with a nice discussion and prospects on how to untwine the causes and the consequences of transitions to selfing. Their study also brings up to date questions about the joint evolution of mating system and life-history traits, which needs a renewed interest from an empirical and theoretical point of view. The results of Yang et al. raise for instance the question of whether it is indeed expected that only reproductive traits, and not vegetative traits, should evolve with the transition to selfing.
The recommandation and evaluation of this paper have been made in collaboration with Thomas Lesaffre.

References

[1] Darwin, C. R. (1876). The effects of cross and self fertilization in the vegetable kingdom. London: Murray. [2] Stebbins, G. L. (1957). Self fertilization and population variability in the higher plants. The American Naturalist, 91, 337-354. doi: 10.1086/281999
[3] Harder, L.D. & Barrett, S. C. H. (2006). Ecology and evolution of flowers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [4] Porcher, E. & Lande, R. (2005). The evolution of self-fertilization and inbreeding depression under pollen discounting and pollen limitation. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 18(3), 497-508. doi: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2005.00905.x
[5] Winn, A.A., et al. (2011). Analysis of inbreeding depression in mixed-mating plants provides evidence for selective interference and stable mixed mating. Evolution, 65(12), 3339-3359. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01462.x
[6] Munoz, F., Violle, C. & Cheptou, P.-O. (2016). CSR ecological strategies and plant mating systems: outcrossing increases with competitiveness but stress-tolerance is related to mixed mating. Oikos, 125(9), 1296-1303. doi: 10.1111/oik.02328
[7] Yang, X., Lascoux, M. & Glémin, S (2018). Variation in competitive ability with mating system, ploidy and range expansion in four Capsella species. bioRxiv, 214866, ver. 5 recommended and peer-reviewed by PCI Evol Biol. doi: 10.1101/214866
[8] Petrone Mendoza, S., Lascoux, M. & Glémin, S. (2018). Competitive ability of Capsella species with different mating systems and ploidy levels. Annals of Botany 121(6), 1257-1264. doi: 10.1093/aob/mcy014
[9] Peischl, S. & Excoffier, L. (2015). Expansion load: recessive mutations and the role of standing genetic variation. Molecular Ecology, 24(9): 2084-2094. doi: 10.1111/mec.13154

Variation in competitive ability with mating system, ploidy and range expansion in four Capsella speciesXuyue Yang, Martin Lascoux and Sylvain Glémin<p>Self-fertilization is often associated with ecological traits corresponding to the ruderal strategy in Grime’s Competitive-Stress-tolerant-Ruderal (CSR) classification of ecological strategies. Consequently, selfers are expected to be less comp...Evolutionary Ecology, Population Genetics / Genomics, Reproduction and Sex, Species interactionsSylvain Billiard2017-11-06 19:54:52 View
11 Jul 2022
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Mutualists construct the ecological conditions that trigger the transition from parasitism

Give them some space: how spatial structure affects the evolutionary transition towards mutualistic symbiosis

Recommended by ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by Eva Kisdi and 3 anonymous reviewers

The evolution of mutualistic symbiosis is a puzzle that has fascinated evolutionary ecologist for quite a while. Data on transitions between symbiotic bacterial ways of life has evidenced shifts from mutualism towards parasitism and vice versa (Sachs et al., 2011), so there does not seem to be a strong determinism on those transitions. From the host’s perspective, mutualistic symbiosis implies at the very least some form of immune tolerance, which can be costly (e.g. Sorci, 2013). Empirical approaches thus raise very important questions: How can symbiosis turn from parasitism into mutualism when it seemingly needs such a strong alignment of selective pressures on both the host and the symbiont? And yet why is mutualistic symbiosis so widespread and so important to the evolution of macro-organisms (Margulis, 1998)?

While much of the theoretical literature on the evolution of symbiosis and mutualism has focused on either the stability of such relationships when non-mutualists can invade the host-symbiont system (e.g. Ferrière et al., 2007) or the effect of the mode of symbiont transmission on the evolutionary dynamics of mutualism (e.g. Genkai-Kato and Yamamura, 1999), the question remains whether and under which conditions parasitic symbiosis can turn into mutualism in the first place. Earlier results suggested that spatial demographic heterogeneity between host populations could be the leading determinant of evolution towards mutualism or parasitism (Hochberg et al., 2000). Here, Ledru et al. (2022) investigate this question in an innovative way by simulating host-symbiont evolutionary dynamics in a spatially explicit context. Their hypothesis is intuitive but its plausibility is difficult to gauge without a model: Does the evolution towards mutualism depend on the ability of the host and symbiont to evolve towards close-range dispersal in order to maintain clusters of efficient host-symbiont associations, thus outcompeting non-mutualists?

I strongly recommend reading this paper as the results obtained by the authors are very clear: competition strength and the cost of dispersal both affect the likelihood of the transition from parasitism to mutualism, and once mutualism has set in, symbiont trait values clearly segregate between highly dispersive parasites and philopatric mutualists. The demonstration of the plausibility of their hypothesis is accomplished with brio and thoroughness as the authors also examine the conditions under which the transition can be reversed, the impact of the spatial range of competition and the effect of mortality. Since high dispersal cost and strong, long-range competition appear to be the main factors driving the evolutionary transition towards mutualistic symbiosis, now is the time for empiricists to start investigating this question with spatial structure in mind.

References

Ferrière, R., Gauduchon, M. and Bronstein, J. L. (2007) Evolution and persistence of obligate mutualists and exploiters: competition for partners and evolutionary immunization. Ecology Letters, 10, 115-126. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2006.01008.x

Genkai-Kato, M. and Yamamura, N. (1999) Evolution of mutualistic symbiosis without vertical transmission. Theoretical Population Biology, 55, 309-323. https://doi.org/10.1006/tpbi.1998.1407

Hochberg, M. E., Gomulkiewicz, R., Holt, R. D. and Thompson, J. N. (2000) Weak sinks could cradle mutualistic symbioses - strong sources should harbour parasitic symbioses. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 13, 213-222. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1420-9101.2000.00157.x

Ledru L, Garnier J, Rohr M, Noûs C and Ibanez S (2022) Mutualists construct the ecological conditions that trigger the transition from parasitism. bioRxiv, 2021.08.18.456759, ver. 5 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.08.18.456759

Margulis, L. (1998) Symbiotic planet: a new look at evolution, Basic Books, Amherst.

Sachs, J. L., Skophammer, R. G. and Regus, J. U. (2011) Evolutionary transitions in bacterial symbiosis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 10800-10807. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1100304108

Sorci, G. (2013) Immunity, resistance and tolerance in bird–parasite interactions. Parasite Immunology, 35, 350-361. https://doi.org/10.1111/pim.12047

Mutualists construct the ecological conditions that trigger the transition from parasitismLeo Ledru, Jimmy Garnier, Matthias Rohr, Camille Nous, Sebastien Ibanez<p>The evolution of mutualism between hosts and initially parasitic symbionts represents a major transition in evolution. Although vertical transmission of symbionts during host reproduction and partner control both favour the stability of mutuali...Evolutionary Ecology, Species interactionsFrancois Massol2021-08-20 12:25:40 View
05 Oct 2022
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Do closely related species interact with similar partners? Testing for phylogenetic signal in bipartite interaction networks

Testing for phylogenetic signal in species interaction networks

Recommended by based on reviews by Joaquin Calatayud and Thomas Guillerme

Species are immersed within communities in which they interact mutualistically, as in pollination or seed dispersal, or nonreciprocally, such as in predation or parasitism, with other species and these interactions play a paramount role in shaping biodiversity (Bascompte and Jordano 2013). Researchers have become increasingly interested in the processes that shape these interactions and how these influence community structure and responses to disturbances. Species interactions are often described using bipartite interaction networks and one important question is how the evolutionary history of the species involved influences the network, including whether there is phylogenetic signal in interactions, in other words whether closely related species interact with other closely related species (Bascompte and Jordano 2013, Perez-Lamarque et al. 2022). To address this question different approaches, correlative and model-based, have been developed to test for phylogenetic signal in interactions, although comparative analyses of the performance of these different metrics are lacking. In their article Perez-Lamarque et al. (2022) set out to test the statistical performance of two widely-used methods, Mantel tests and Phylogenetic Bipartite Linear Models (PBLM; Ives and Godfray 2006) using simulations. Phylogenetic signal is measured as the degree to which distance to the nearest common ancestor predicts the observed similarity in trait values among species. In species interaction networks, the data are actually the between-species dissimilarity among interacting species (Perez-Lamarque et al. 2022), and typical approaches to test for phylogenetic signal cannot be used. However, the Mantel test provides a useful means of analyzing the correlation between two distance matrices, the between-species phylogenetic distance and the between-species dissimilarity in interactions. The PBLM approach, on the other hand, assumes that interactions between species are influenced by unobserved traits that evolve along the phylogenies following a given phenotypic evolution model and the parameters of this model are interpreted in terms of phylogenetic signal (Ives and Godfray 2006). Perez-Lamarque et al (2022) found that the model-based PBLM approach has a high type-I error rate, in other words it often detected phylogenetic signal when there was none. The simple Mantel test was found to present a low type-I error rate and moderate statistical power. However, it tended to overestimate the degree to which species interact with dissimilar partners. In addition to the aforementioned analyses, the authors also tested whether the simple Mantel test was able to detect phylogenetic signal in interactions among species within a given clade in the phylogeny, as phylogenetic signal in species interactions may be localized within specific clades. The article concludes with general guidelines for users wishing to test phylogenetic signal in their interaction networks and illustrates them with an example of an orchid-mycorrhizal fungus network from the oceanic island of La Réunion (Martos et al 2012). This broadly accessible article provides a valuable analysis of the performance of tests of phylogenetic signal in interaction networks enabling users to make informed choices of the analytical methods they wish to employ, and provide useful and detailed guidelines. Therefore, the work should be of broad interest to researchers studying species interactions.  

References

Bascompte J, Jordano P (2013) Mutualistic Networks. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400848720

Ives AR, Godfray HCJ (2006) Phylogenetic Analysis of Trophic Associations. The American Naturalist, 168, E1–E14. https://doi.org/10.1086/505157

Martos F, Munoz F, Pailler T, Kottke I, Gonneau C, Selosse M-A (2012) The role of epiphytism in architecture and evolutionary constraint within mycorrhizal networks of tropical orchids. Molecular Ecology, 21, 5098–5109. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2012.05692.x

Perez-Lamarque B, Maliet O, Pichon B, Selosse M-A, Martos F, Morlon H (2022) Do closely related species interact with similar partners? Testing for phylogenetic signal in bipartite interaction networks. bioRxiv, 2021.08.30.458192, ver. 6 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.08.30.458192

Do closely related species interact with similar partners? Testing for phylogenetic signal in bipartite interaction networks Benoît Perez-Lamarque, Odile Maliet, Benoît Pichon, Marc-André Selosse, Florent Martos, Hélène Morlon<p style="text-align: justify;">Whether interactions between species are conserved on evolutionary time-scales has spurred the development of both correlative and process-based approaches for testing phylogenetic signal in interspecific interactio...Evolutionary Ecology, Species interactionsAlejandro Gonzalez Voyer2022-03-10 13:48:15 View
02 Feb 2024
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Community structure of heritable viruses in a Drosophila-parasitoids complex

The virome of a Drosophilidae-parasitoid community

Recommended by ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by 3 anonymous reviewers

Understanding the factors that shape the virome of a host is key to understanding virus ecology and evolution (Obbard, 2018; French & Holmes, 2020). There is still much to learn about the diversity and distribution of viruses in a host community (Wille et al., 2019; Chen et al., 2023). The viruses of parasitoid wasps are well studied, and their viruses, or integrated viral genes, are known to suppress their insect host’s immune response to enhance parasitoid survival (Herniou et al., 2013; Coffman et al., 2022). Likewise, the insect virome is being increasingly well studied (Shi et al., 2016), with the virome of Drosophila species being particularly well characterised over the best part of the last century (L'Heritier & Teissier, 1937; L'Heritier, 1970; Brun & Plus, 1980; Longdon et al., 2010; Longdon et al., 2011; Longdon et al., 2012; Webster et al., 2015; Webster et al., 2016; Medd et al., 2018; Wallace et al., 2021). However, the viromes of parasitoids and their insect host communities have been less well studied (Leigh et al., 2018; Caldas-Garcia et al., 2023), and the inherent connectivity between parasitoids and their hosts provides an interesting system to study virus host range and cross-species transmission.

Here, Varaldi et al (Varaldi et al., 2024) have examined the viruses associated with a community of nine Drosophilidae hosts and six parasitoids. Using both RNA and DNA sequencing of insects reared for two generations, they selected viruses that are maintained in the lab either via vertical transmission or contamination of rearing medium. From 55 pools of insects they found 53 virus-like sequences, 37 of which were novel. Parasitoids were host to nearly twice as many viruses as their Drosophila hosts, although they note this could be due to differences in the rearing temperatures of the hosts.  

They next quantified if species, year, season, or location played a role in structuring the virome, finding only a significant effect of host species, which explained just over 50% of the variation in virus distribution. No evidence was found of related species sharing more similar virus communities. Although looking at a limited number of species, this suggests that these viruses are not co-speciating or preferentially host switching between closely related species.

Finally, they carried out crosses between lines of the parasitoid Leptopilina heterotoma that were infected and uninfected for a novel Iflavirus found in their sequencing data.  They found evidence of high levels of maternal transmission and lower level horizontal transmission between wasp larvae parasitising the same host. No evidence of changes in parasitoid-induced mortality, developmental success or the sex ratio was found in iflavirus-infected parasitoids. Interestingly individuals infected with this RNA virus also contained viral DNA, but this did not appear to be integrated into the wasp genome.

Overall, this work has taken the first steps in examining the community structure of the virome of parasitoids together with their Drosophilidae hosts. This work will not doubt stimulate follow-up studies to explore the evolution and ecology of these novel virus communities.

References

Brun G, Plus N (1980) The viruses of Drosophila. In: The genetics and biology of Drosophila eds Ashburner M & Wright TRF), pp. 625-702. Academic Press, New York.
 
Caldas-Garcia GB, Santos VC, Fonseca PLC, de Almeida JPP, Costa MA, Aguiar ERGR (2023) The Viromes of Six Ecosystem Service Provider Parasitoid Wasps. Viruses, 15. https://doi.org/10.3390/v15122448
 
Chen YM, Hu SJ, Lin XD, Tian JH, Lv JX, Wang MR, Luo XQ, Pei YY, Hu RX, Song ZG, Holmes EC, Zhang YZ (2023) Host traits shape virome composition and virus transmission in wild small mammals. Cell, 186, 4662-4675 e4612. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2023.08.029
 
Coffman KA, Hankinson QM, Burke GR (2022) A viral mutualist employs posthatch transmission for vertical and horizontal spread among parasitoid wasps. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2120048119
 
French RK, Holmes EC (2020) An Ecosystems Perspective on Virus Evolution and Emergence. Trends in Microbiology, 28, 165-175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2019.10.010
 
Herniou EA, Huguet E, Thézé J, Bézier A, Periquet G, Drezen JM (2013) When parasitic wasps hijacked viruses: genomic and functional evolution of polydnaviruses. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 368. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0051
 
L'Heritier PH (1970) Drosophila viruses and their role as evolutionary factors. Evolutionary Biology, 4, 185-209
 
L'Heritier PH, Teissier G (1937) Une anomalie physiologique héréditaire chez la Drosophile. C.R. Acad. Sci. Paris, 231, 192-194
 
Leigh BA, Bordenstein SR, Brooks AW, Mikaelyan A, Bordenstein SR (2018) Finer-Scale Phylosymbiosis: Insights from Insect Viromes. Msystems, 3. https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00131-18
 
Longdon B, Obbard DJ, Jiggins FM (2010) Sigma viruses from three species of Drosophila form a major new clade in the rhabdovirus phylogeny. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 277, 35-44. 
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2009.1472
 
Longdon B, Wilfert L, Jiggins FM (2012) The Sigma Viruses of Drosophila. Caister Academic Press, Norfolk, UK.
 
Longdon B, Wilfert L, Osei-Poku J, Cagney H, Obbard DJ, Jiggins FM (2011) Host switching by a vertically-transmitted rhabdovirus in Drosophila. Biology Letters, 7, 747-750. 
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2011.0160
 
Medd NC, Fellous S, Waldron FM, Xuereb A, Nakai M, Cross JV, Obbard DJ (2018) The virome of Drosophila suzukii, an invasive pest of soft fruit. Virus Evol, 4, vey009. 
https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/vey009
 
Obbard DJ (2018) Expansion of the metazoan virosphere: progress, pitfalls, and prospects. Curr Opin Virol, 31, 17-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coviro.2018.08.008
 
Shi M, Lin XD, Tian JH, Chen LJ, Chen X, Li CX, Qin XC, Li J, Cao JP, Eden JS, Buchmann J, Wang W, Xu J, Holmes EC, Zhang YZ (2016) Redefining the invertebrate RNA virosphere. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature20167
 
Varaldi J, Lepetit D, Burlet N, Faber C, Baretje B, Allemand R (2024) Community structure of heritable viruses in a Drosophila-parasitoids complex. bioRxiv, 2023.2007.2029.551099, ver.3, peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.07.29.551099
 
Wallace MA, Coffman KA, Gilbert C, Ravindran S, Albery GF, Abbott J, Argyridou E, Bellosta P, Betancourt AJ, Colinet H, Eric K, Glaser-Schmitt A, Grath S, Jelic M, Kankare M, Kozeretska I, Loeschcke V, Montchamp-Moreau C, Ometto L, Onder BS, Orengo DJ, Parsch J, Pascual M, Patenkovic A, Puerma E, Ritchie MG, Rota-Stabelli O, Schou MF, Serga SV, Stamenkovic-Radak M, Tanaskovic M, Veselinovic MS, Vieira J, Vieira CP, Kapun M, Flatt T, Gonzalez J, Staubach F, Obbard DJ (2021) The discovery, distribution, and diversity of DNA viruses associated with Drosophila melanogaster in Europe. Virus Evol, 7, veab031. https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veab031
 
Webster CL, Longdon B, Lewis SH, Obbard DJ (2016) Twenty-Five New Viruses Associated with the Drosophilidae (Diptera). Evol Bioinform Online, 12, 13-25. https://doi.org/10.4137/EBO.S39454
 
Webster CL, Waldron FM, Robertson S, Crowson D, Ferrai G, Quintana JF, Brouqui JM, Bayne EH, Longdon B, Buck AH, Lazzaro BP, Akorli J, Haddrill PR, Obbard DJ (2015) The discovery, distribution and evolution of viruses associated with Drosophila melanogaster. Plos Biology, 13(7): e1002210. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002210
 
Wille M, Shi M, Klaassen M, Hurt AC, Holmes EC (2019) Virome heterogeneity and connectivity in waterfowl and shorebird communities. ISME J, 13, 2603-2616. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-019-0458-0

Community structure of heritable viruses in a *Drosophila*-parasitoids complexJulien Varaldi, David Lepetit, Nelly Burlet, Camille Faber, Bérénice Baretje, Roland Allemand<p style="text-align: justify;">The diversity and phenotypic impacts related to the presence of heritable bacteria in insects have been extensively studied in the last decades. On the contrary, heritable viruses have been overlooked for several re...Evolutionary Ecology, Species interactionsBen Longdon2023-08-03 01:07:43 View
22 May 2017
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Can Ebola Virus evolve to be less virulent in humans?

A new hypothesis to explain Ebola's high virulence

Recommended by and based on reviews by Virginie Ravigné and François Blanquart

 

The tragic 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak that resulted in more than 28,000 cases and 11,000 deaths in West Africa [1] has been a surprise to the scientific community. Before 2013, the Ebola virus (EBOV) was known to produce recurrent outbreaks in remote villages near tropical rainforests in Central Africa, never exceeding a few hundred cases with very high virulence. Both EBOV’s ability to circulate for several months in large urban human populations and its important mutation rate suggest that EBOV’s virulence could evolve and to some extent adapt to human hosts [2]. Up to now, the high virulence of EBOV in humans was generally thought to be maladaptive, the virus being adapted to circulating in wild animal populations (e.g. fruit bats [3]). As a logical consequence, EBOV virulence could be expected to decrease during long epidemics in humans. The present paper by Sofonea et al. [4] challenges this view and explores how, given EBOV’s life cycle and known epidemiological parameters, virulence is expected to evolve in the human host during long epidemics. The main finding of the paper is that there is no chance that EBOV’s virulence decreases in the short and long terms. The main underlying mechanism is that EBOV is also transmitted by dead bodies, which limits the cost of virulence. In itself the idea that selection should select for higher virulence in diseases that are also transmitted after host death will sound intuitive for most evolutionary epidemiologists. The accomplishment of the paper is to make a very strong case that the parameter range where virulence could decrease is very small. The paper further provides scientifically grounded arguments in favor of the safe management of corpses. Safe burial of corpses is culturally difficult to impose. The present paper shows that in addition to instantaneously decreasing the spread of the virus, safe burial may limit virulence increase in the short term and favor of less virulent strains in the long term. Altogether these results make a timely and important contribution to the knowledge and understanding of EBOV.

References

[1] World Health Organization. 2016. WHO: Ebola situation report - 10 June 2016.

[2] Kupferschmidt K. 2014. Imagining Ebola’s next move. Science 346: 151–152. doi: 10.1126/science.346.6206.151

[3] Leroy EM, Kumulungui B, Pourrut X, Rouquet P, Hassanin A, Yaba P, Délicat A, Paweska, Gonzalez JP and Swanepoel R. 2005. Fruit bats as reservoirs of Ebola virus. Nature 438: 575–576. doi: 10.1038/438575a

[4] Sofonea MT, Aldakak L, Boullosa LFVV and Alizon S. 2017. Can Ebola Virus evolve to be less virulent in humans? bioRxiv 108589, ver. 3 of 19th May 2017; doi: 10.1101/108589

Can Ebola Virus evolve to be less virulent in humans?Mircea T. Sofonea, Lafi Aldakak, Luis Fernando Boullosa, Samuel AlizonUnderstanding Ebola Virus (EBOV) virulence evolution is not only timely but also raises specific questions because it causes one pf the most virulent human infections and it is capable of transmission after the death of its host. Using a compartme...Evolutionary EpidemiologyVirginie Ravigné2017-02-15 13:25:58 View
18 Aug 2020
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Early phylodynamics analysis of the COVID-19 epidemics in France

SARS-Cov-2 genome sequence analysis suggests rapid spread followed by epidemic slowdown in France

Recommended by based on reviews by Luca Ferretti and 2 anonymous reviewers

Sequencing and analyzing SARS-Cov-2 genomes in nearly real time has the potential to quickly confirm (and inform) our knowledge of, and response to, the current pandemic [1,2]. In this manuscript [3], Danesh and colleagues use the earliest set of available SARS-Cov-2 genome sequences available from France to make inferences about the timing of the major epidemic wave, the duration of infections, and the efficacy of lockdown measures. Their phylodynamic estimates -- based on fitting genomic data to molecular clock and transmission models -- are reassuringly close to estimates based on 'traditional' epidemiological methods: the French epidemic likely began in mid-January or early February 2020, and spread relatively rapidly (doubling every 3-5 days), with people remaining infectious for a median of 5 days [4,5]. These transmission parameters are broadly in line with estimates from China [6,7], but are currently unknown in France (in the absence of contact tracing data). By estimating the temporal reproductive number (Rt), the authors detected a slowing down of the epidemic in the most recent period of the study, after mid-March, supporting the efficacy of lockdown measures.
Along with the three other reviewers of this manuscript, I was impressed with the careful and exhaustive phylodynamic analyses reported by Danesh et al. [3]. Notably, they take care to show that the major results are robust to the choice of priors and to sampling. The authors are also careful to note that the results are based on a limited sample size of SARS-Cov-2 genomes, which may not be representative of all regions in France. Their analysis also focused on the dominant SARS-Cov-2 lineage circulating in France, which is also circulating in other countries. The variations they inferred in epidemic growth in France could therefore be reflective on broader control policies in Europe, not only those in France. Clearly more work is needed to fully unravel which control policies (and where) were most effective in slowing the spread of SARS-Cov-2, but Danesh et al. [3] set a solid foundation to build upon with more data. Overall this is an exemplary study, enabled by rapid and open sharing of sequencing data, which provides a template to be replicated and expanded in other countries and regions as they deal with their own localized instances of this pandemic.

References

[1] Grubaugh, N. D., Ladner, J. T., Lemey, P., Pybus, O. G., Rambaut, A., Holmes, E. C., & Andersen, K. G. (2019). Tracking virus outbreaks in the twenty-first century. Nature microbiology, 4(1), 10-19. doi: 10.1038/s41564-018-0296-2
[2] Fauver et al. (2020) Coast-to-Coast Spread of SARS-CoV-2 during the Early Epidemic in the United States. Cell, 181(5), 990-996.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.021
[3] Danesh, G., Elie, B., Michalakis, Y., Sofonea, M. T., Bal, A., Behillil, S., Destras, G., Boutolleau, D., Burrel, S., Marcelin, A.-G., Plantier, J.-C., Thibault, V., Simon-Loriere, E., van der Werf, S., Lina, B., Josset, L., Enouf, V. and Alizon, S. and the COVID SMIT PSL group (2020) Early phylodynamics analysis of the COVID-19 epidemic in France. medRxiv, 2020.06.03.20119925, ver. 3 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Evolutionary Biology. doi: 10.1101/2020.06.03.20119925
[4] Salje et al. (2020) Estimating the burden of SARS-CoV-2 in France. hal-pasteur.archives-ouvertes.fr/pasteur-02548181
[5] Sofonea, M. T., Reyné, B., Elie, B., Djidjou-Demasse, R., Selinger, C., Michalakis, Y. and Samuel Alizon, S. (2020) Epidemiological monitoring and control perspectives: application of a parsimonious modelling framework to the COVID-19 dynamics in France. medRxiv, 2020.05.22.20110593. doi: 10.1101/2020.05.22.20110593
[6] Rambaut, A. (2020) Phylogenetic analysis of nCoV-2019 genomes. virological.org/t/phylodynamic-analysis-176-genomes-6-mar-2020/356
[7] Li et al. (2020) Early transmission dynamics in Wuhan, China, of novel coronavirus–infected pneumonia. N Engl J Med, 382: 1199-1207. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2001316

Early phylodynamics analysis of the COVID-19 epidemics in FranceGonché Danesh, Baptiste Elie,Yannis Michalakis, Mircea T. Sofonea, Antonin Bal, Sylvie Behillil, Grégory Destras, David Boutolleau, Sonia Burrel, Anne-Geneviève Marcelin, Jean-Christophe Plantier, Vincent Thibault, Etienne Simon-Loriere, Sylvie va...<p>France was one of the first countries to be reached by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we analyse 196 SARS-Cov-2 genomes collected between Jan 24 and Mar 24 2020, and perform a phylodynamics analysis. In particular, we analyse the doubling time, r...Evolutionary Epidemiology, Molecular Evolution, Phylogenetics / PhylogenomicsB. Jesse Shapiro2020-06-04 13:13:57 View