In response to the recent publication of the Florida Lancelet's genome draft in the June 19th issue of Nature (Nature 453:1064-1071), Mark Hauber of the University of Auckland, New Zealand and colleagues here highlight the important and broader issue of gender genomics in this context.
The complex issue of mtDNA rate measurement is a topic of hot debate. In the first issue of Heredity this year H-J Bandelt (Heredity 100, 1-2) provided an interesting news and commentary on this topic, discussing the use of simple mtDNA clocks in molecular dating.
Howell et al. here provide a detailed response to Prof Bandelt's commentary, arguing that mtDNA evolution is not clock-like and that the evidence for time dependent rates should not be dismissed.
Peter Hollingsworth of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, UK presents an interesting commentary on a recent work on DNA barcoding in the flora of biodiversity hotspots published in PNAS this month.
"Rapid Correspondence - DNA barcoding plants in biodiversity hotspots" »
A recent News and Commentary published in Heredity (Heredity 100, 3-4) proposed an alternative hypothesis to the 'pollinator shift' hypothsis suggested in a letter by Whittall and Hodges published in Nature (Nature 447, 706-709) . Here, Scott Hodges and Justen Whittall provide their response to this.
"Rapid Correspondence - One-sided evolution or two? A reply to Ennos" »
Further to an earlier response by AJR Hickey on the forum (Heredity, in press) to Berlin et al.'s paper on low mitochondrial diversity in birds, Nick Lane now contributes his thoughts on the subject.
"Rapid Correspondence - More on mitochondrial DNA polymorphism in birds" »
After reading with interest an article by Berlin et al. (Heredity 99, 389-396) on mitochondiral variability in birds, Anthony Hickey proposes an alternative interpretation to the data showing low mtDNA diversity, which they attributed to Hill-Robertson effects.
"Rapid Correspondence - Mitochondrial DNA polymorphism in birds" »