February 2019

Many species occasionally hybridise and share genetic material with related species; however, interspecific gene flow may be counteracted by natural selection at particular 'barrier loci.' As a result, a pair of species can end up sharing more genetic variation in some parts of their genome than in others, and the tree of relationships in a group of species can consequently differ from one part of the genome to another. This study by Martin et al. studied relationships and barriers among three species of Heliconius butterflies using whole-genome sequences from nine populations. The authors find that species relationships vary dramatically and predictably across the genome because the species barriers are more porous in genomic regions with higher recombination rates. This occurs because recombination determines how broadly the surrounding genome is affected by a barrier locus. The study reveals how hybridisation, recombination and selection interact to reshape species' relationships. The image shows two of these closely related species, Heliconius cydno (left) and Heliconius melpomene (right), which co-occur in the forests of Central America. They will occasionally interbreed in captivity as seen here but hybridisation between the two species is extremely rare in the wild due to strong preference for mates of their own species. The hybrid offspring are not only ill-adapted to their environment, but female hybrids are sterile.

Image Credit: Chris Jiggins

Open Highlights

The PLOS Biology XV Collection: 15 Years of Exceptional Science Highlighted across 12 Months

Lauren A. Richardson, Sandra L. Schmid, Avinash Bhandoola, Christelle Harly, Anders Hedenström, Michael T. Laub, Georgina M. Mace, Piali Sengupta, Ann M. Stock, Andrew F. Read, Harmit S. Malik, Mark Estelle, Sally Lowell, Jonathan Kimmelman

PLOS Biology: published February 27, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000180

Unsolved Mystery

Long noncoding RNAs: p53’s secret weapon in the fight against cancer?

Emily Dangelmaier, Sarah B. Lazar, Ashish Lal

PLOS Biology: published February 13, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000143

Perspectives

Reliable novelty: New should not trump true

Björn Brembs

PLOS Biology: published February 12, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000117

A proposal for the future of scientific publishing in the life sciences

Bodo M. Stern, Erin K. O’Shea

PLOS Biology: published February 12, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000116

On the value of preprints: An early career researcher perspective

Sarvenaz Sarabipour, Humberto J. Debat, Edward Emmott, Steven J. Burgess, Benjamin Schwessinger, Zach Hensel

PLOS Biology: published February 21, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000151

Primers

Fish, mirrors, and a gradualist perspective on self-awareness

Frans B. M. de Waal

PLOS Biology: published February 7, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000112

Experimental evolution reveals microbial traits for association with the host gut

Nicole M. Vega

PLOS Biology: published February 4, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000129

Searching for the genes driving assortative mating

Erica L. Westerman

PLOS Biology: published February 7, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000108

Evolutionary change in the human gut microbiome: From a static to a dynamic view

Isabel Gordo

PLOS Biology: published February 7, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000126

Fat cells gobbling up norepinephrine?

Vitaly Ryu, Christoph Buettner

PLOS Biology: published February 7, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000138

Late-life mortality is underestimated because of data errors

Leonid A. Gavrilov, Natalia S. Gavrilova

PLOS Biology: published February 7, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000148

Research Articles

The evolution of the syrinx: An acoustic theory

Tobias Riede, Scott L. Thomson, Ingo R. Titze, Franz Goller

PLOS Biology: published February 7, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2006507

A census-based estimate of Earth's bacterial and archaeal diversity

Stilianos Louca, Florent Mazel, Michael Doebeli, Laura Wegener Parfrey

PLOS Biology: published February 4, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000106

Genetic redundancy fuels polygenic adaptation in Drosophila

Neda Barghi, Raymond Tobler, Viola Nolte, Ana Marija Jakšić, François Mallard, Kathrin Anna Otte, Marlies Dolezal, Thomas Taus, Robert Kofler, Christian Schlötterer

PLOS Biology: published February 4, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000128

Genetic dissection of assortative mating behavior

Richard M. Merrill, Pasi Rastas, Simon H. Martin, Maria C. Melo, Sarah Barker, John Davey, W. Owen McMillan, Chris D. Jiggins

PLOS Biology: published February 7, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2005902

Recombination rate variation shapes barriers to introgression across butterfly genomes

Simon H. Martin, John W. Davey, Camilo Salazar, Chris D. Jiggins

PLOS Biology: published February 7, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2006288

Contingency in the convergent evolution of a regulatory network: Dosage compensation in Drosophila

Christopher Ellison, Doris Bachtrog

PLOS Biology: published February 11, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000094

Secondary contact between diverged host lineages entails ecological speciation in a European hantavirus

Moritz Saxenhofer, Sabrina Schmidt, Rainer G. Ulrich, Gerald Heckel

PLOS Biology: published February 20, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000142

Uncovering and resolving challenges of quantitative modeling in a simplified community of interacting cells

Samuel F. M. Hart, Hanbing Mi, Robin Green, Li Xie, Jose Mario Bello Pineda, Babak Momeni, Wenying Shou

PLOS Biology: published February 22, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000135

Attention promotes the neural encoding of prediction errors

Cooper A. Smout, Matthew F. Tang, Marta I. Garrido, Jason B. Mattingley

PLOS Biology: published February 27, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2006812

A single pair of leucokinin neurons are modulated by feeding state and regulate sleep–metabolism interactions

Maria E. Yurgel, Priyanka Kakad, Meet Zandawala, Dick R. Nässel, Tanja A. Godenschwege, Alex C. Keene

PLOS Biology: published February 13, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2006409

Trpm4 ion channels in pre-Bötzinger complex interneurons are essential for breathing motor pattern but not rhythm

Maria Cristina D. Picardo, Yae K. Sugimura, Kaitlyn E. Dorst, Prajkta S. Kallurkar, Victoria T. Akins, Xingru Ma, Ryoichi Teruyama, Romain Guinamard, Kaiwen Kam, Margaret S. Saha, Christopher A. Del Negro

PLOS Biology: published February 21, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2006094

A novel nonosteocytic regulatory mechanism of bone modeling

Lior Ofer, Mason N. Dean, Paul Zaslansky, Shiri Kult, Yulia Shwartz, Janna Zaretsky, Shelley Griess-Fishheimer, Efrat Monsonego-Ornan, Elazar Zelzer, Ron Shahar

PLOS Biology: published February 1, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000140

Lens differentiation is controlled by the balance between PDGF and FGF signaling

Hongge Li, Yingyu Mao, Michael Bouaziz, Honglian Yu, Xiuxia Qu, Fen Wang, Gen-Sheng Feng, Carrie Shawber, Xin Zhang

PLOS Biology: published February 4, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000133

Alternative (backdoor) androgen production and masculinization in the human fetus

Peter J. O’Shaughnessy, Jean Philippe Antignac, Bruno Le Bizec, Marie-Line Morvan, Konstantin Svechnikov, Olle Söder, Iuliia Savchuk, Ana Monteiro, Ugo Soffientini, Zoe C. Johnston, Michelle Bellingham, Denise Hough, Natasha Walker, Panagiotis Filis, Paul A. Fowler

PLOS Biology: published February 14, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000002

Modeling Edar expression reveals the hidden dynamics of tooth signaling center patterning

Alexa Sadier, Monika Twarogowska, Klara Steklikova, Luke Hayden, Anne Lambert, Pascal Schneider, Vincent Laudet, Maria Hovorakova, Vincent Calvez, Sophie Pantalacci

PLOS Biology: published February 7, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000064

Developmental regulation of regenerative potential in Drosophila by ecdysone through a bistable loop of ZBTB transcription factors

Karine Narbonne-Reveau, Cédric Maurange

PLOS Biology: published February 11, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000149

Feather arrays are patterned by interacting signalling and cell density waves

William K. W. Ho, Lucy Freem, Debiao Zhao, Kevin J. Painter, Thomas E. Woolley, Eamonn A. Gaffney, Michael J. McGrew, Athanasia Tzika, Michel C. Milinkovitch, Pascal Schneider, Armin Drusko, Franziska Matthäus, James D. Glover, Kirsty L. Wells, Jeanette A. Johansson, Megan G. Davey, Helen M. Sang, Michael Clinton, Denis J. Headon

PLOS Biology: published February 21, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000132

Time-dependent Pax3-mediated chromatin remodeling and cooperation with Six4 and Tead2 specify the skeletal myogenic lineage in developing mesoderm

Alessandro Magli, June Baik, Lauren J. Mills, Il-Youp Kwak, Bridget S. Dillon, Ricardo Mondragon Gonzalez, David A. Stafford, Scott A. Swanson, Ron Stewart, James A. Thomson, Daniel J. Garry, Brian D. Dynlacht, Rita C. R. Perlingeiro

PLOS Biology: published February 26, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000153

Brain expansion promoted by polycomb-mediated anterior enhancement of a neural stem cell proliferation program

Shahrzad Bahrampour, Carolin Jonsson, Stefan Thor

PLOS Biology: published February 26, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000163

Proximal recolonization by self-renewing microglia re-establishes microglial homeostasis in the adult mouse brain

Lihong Zhan, Grietje Krabbe, Fei Du, Ian Jones, Meredith C. Reichert, Maria Telpoukhovskaia, Lay Kodama, Chao Wang, Seo-hyun Cho, Faten Sayed, Yaqiao Li, David Le, Yungui Zhou, Yin Shen, Brian West, Li Gan

PLOS Biology: published February 8, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000134

Boosting subdominant neutralizing antibody responses with a computationally designed epitope-focused immunogen

Fabian Sesterhenn, Marie Galloux, Sabrina S. Vollers, Lucia Csepregi, Che Yang, Delphyne Descamps, Jaume Bonet, Simon Friedensohn, Pablo Gainza, Patricia Corthésy, Man Chen, Stéphane Rosset, Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti, Jean-François Éléouët, Sai T. Reddy, Barney S. Graham, Sabine Riffault, Bruno E. Correia

PLOS Biology: published February 21, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000164

Induced aneuploidy in neural stem cells triggers a delayed stress response and impairs adult life span in flies

Mihailo Mirkovic, Leonardo G. Guilgur, Alexandra Tavares, Diogo Passagem-Santos, Raquel A. Oliveira

PLOS Biology: published February 22, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000016

Phosphodiesterase beta is the master regulator of cAMP signalling during malaria parasite invasion

Christian Flueck, Laura G. Drought, Andrew Jones, Avnish Patel, Abigail J. Perrin, Eloise M. Walker, Stephanie D. Nofal, Ambrosius P. Snijders, Michael J. Blackman, David A. Baker

PLOS Biology: published February 22, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000154

TRIM2, a novel member of the antiviral family, limits New World arenavirus entry

Nicolas Sarute, Nouhou Ibrahim, Bani Medegan Fagla, Madakasira Lavanya, Christian Cuevas, Spyridon Stavrou, Guliz Otkiran-Clare, Henna Tyynismaa, Jorge Henao-Mejia, Susan R. Ross

PLOS Biology: published February 6, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000137

Potent anti-influenza H7 human monoclonal antibody induces separation of hemagglutinin receptor-binding head domains

Hannah L. Turner, Jesper Pallesen, Shanshan Lang, Sandhya Bangaru, Sarah Urata, Sheng Li, Christopher A. Cottrell, Charles A. Bowman, James E. Crowe Jr., Ian A. Wilson, Andrew B. Ward

PLOS Biology: published February 4, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000139

Structural basis of DSF recognition by its receptor RpfR and its regulatory interaction with the DSF synthase RpfF

Evan J. Waldron, Daniel Snyder, Nicolas L. Fernandez, Emily Sileo, Daigo Inoyama, Joel S. Freundlich, Christopher M. Waters, Vaughn S. Cooper, Matthew B. Neiditch

PLOS Biology: published February 4, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000123

Molecular recognition and maturation of SOD1 by its evolutionarily destabilised cognate chaperone hCCS

Fernanda A. Sala, Gareth S. A. Wright, Svetlana V. Antonyuk, Richard C. Garratt, S. Samar Hasnain

PLOS Biology: published February 8, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000141

Short Reports

If a fish can pass the mark test, what are the implications for consciousness and self-awareness testing in animals?

Masanori Kohda, Takashi Hotta, Tomohiro Takeyama, Satoshi Awata, Hirokazu Tanaka, Jun-ya Asai, Alex L. Jordan

PLOS Biology: published February 7, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000021

Microglia exit the CNS in spinal root avulsion

Lauren A. Green, Julia C. Nebiolo, Cody J. Smith

PLOS Biology: published February 22, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000159

A determining factor for insect feeding preference in the silkworm, Bombyx mori

Zhong-Jie Zhang, Shuai-Shuai Zhang, Bao-Long Niu, Dong-Feng Ji, Xiao-Jing Liu, Mu-Wang Li, Hua Bai, Subba Reddy Palli, Chen-Zhu Wang, An-Jiang Tan

PLOS Biology: published February 27, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000162

Meta-Research Article

Scrutinizing assortative mating in birds

Daiping Wang, Wolfgang Forstmeier, Mihai Valcu, Niels J. Dingemanse, Martin Bulla, Christiaan Both, Renée A. Duckworth, Lynna Marie Kiere, Patrik Karell, Tomáš Albrecht, Bart Kempenaers

PLOS Biology: published February 21, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000156

Cover

Recombination rate variation shapes barriers to introgression across butterfly genomes

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