Inherently Responsive

Winning by Losing in the Human Genome?

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:52:56 +0000

The idea that evolution is led by increasing genetic complexity has, over the years, annealed into the general opinion of geneticists. This increasing complexity is developed through the expensive and slow innovation cycle of gene duplication, mutation, and selection; and so, it seems contrary that a species’ fitness could be improved by losing hard-won genetic capabilities, as has been proposed by the “less is more” hypothesis (Olson, 1999). For that reason, genetic research has traditionally dealt with active genes instead of “broken” ones (or pseudogenes). The lack of a deep knowledge about the genomic significance of adaptive gene losses in mammalian genome evolution explains the important contribution of a recent study in this research area (Zhu et al, 2007). This recent work applied an ingenious method to systematically identify the losses of genes that had been long established in the human lineage over the last 75 million years. A total of 26 well-established genes, inactivated long after their birth, were identified by this analysis, with the identification of 16 previously uncharacterized human pseudogenes. This work completes former studies about pseudogene formation during human origin (Wang et al, 2006), and provides important insights for a better comprehension of this particular genetic phenomenon, in a field scarcely documented until now.

Rapid Correspondence - Gender Genomics and Equality

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:11:43 +0000

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.

Book Review - 'Speciation in Birds' by Trevor Price

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:13:54 +0000

Rapid Correspondence - Molecular clock debate

Fri, 02 May 2008 15:41:49 +0000

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.

Rapid Correspondence - DNA barcoding plants in biodiversity hotspots

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:30:21 +0000

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 - One-sided evolution or two? A reply to Ennos

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:15:29 +0000

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 - More on mitochondrial DNA polymorphism in birds

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 09:58:07 +0000

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 - Mitochondrial DNA polymorphism in birds

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:16:18 +0000

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.

Dispersal estimation: Demystifying Moran's I

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:42:48 +0000

Populations spaced further apart are expected to be more genetically distinct than populations close together. This pattern arises because neighbouring populations exchange genes.

The trend can be used to infer the magnitude of gene flow.

François Rousset has written papers showing how to calculate such estimates but some researchers - especially plant geneticists - use rival methods based on the statistic "Moran's I". Rousset explains why his methods are an advance on these alternatives in a recent News and Commentary published in Heredity.

Click here to read the Heredity News and Commentary

Africans in Yorkshire: what’s the big deal?

Fri, 25 May 2007 09:34:56 +0000

A genetic survey in the UK by Mark Jobling and colleagues, found a Yorkshireman who carried a globally rare Y chromosome type, described previously in only a few West African individuals. Their report in the European Journal of Human Genetics earlier this year sparked considerable press speculation about the history of African migrations into the UK.

Further information was obtained by enlarging the sample. Y chromosomes and surnames are both passed from father to son, so other men sharing the same rare east-Yorkshire surname as the original man were recruited for their study in the search for additional Y’s. One third of them were also found to carry the African chromosome. Conventional genealogical research was then used to link the participants to two family trees, both dating back to the 1780s in Yorkshire. Does this evidence pin down the date at which an African ancestor arrived in the UK?

Neil Bradman and Mark Thomas are doubtful. They have published a commentary in Heredity asking whether we should be surprised by the discovery of this Y haplotype in Yorkshire at all, given the accepted wisdom that Modern Man originated from Africa. Indeed, is it not more surprising that from a survey of 421 British males, only one carried the rare African Y chromosome?

Female Choice – why has it not produced perfection?

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 17:08:28 +0000

According to Darwin, the female of the species could guide evolution by favouring the aesthetically blessed and harshly casting aside the not-so-fortunate. If generations of women have been making these choices, surely the world would be full of good-looking men yet, unfortunately, it most definitely isn’t. This disappointing situation is an example of the ‘lek paradox’. Why are there still good and bad looking men, if females have consistently been choosing the best looking? One possibility is that the difference is not genetic, yet all the available evidence suggests otherwise (backed up by breeding experiments in non-human species).

Professor Marion Petrie and Dr Gilbert Roberts at Newcastle University provide another explanation for this paradox in their paper in the April issue of Heredity. The authors, using computer simulations, show that female choice can in fact lead to bursts of mutation affecting male attributes. The elevated mutation would throw up even more attractive males, sadly mutation is a blind and random process, so at the same time it produces the less attractive as well.

Click here to read the Heredity article

Click here to read Cotton and Pomiankowski's Heredity News and Commentary on this paper

Click here to read King and Kashi's Heredity News and Commentary on this paper

Click here to view the BBC story on this paper

Click here to view the Times comment on this paper

Latest papers on Heredity.

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 16:04:38 +0000

Please cite Heredity as the source of the following items. If publishing online, please carry a hyperlink to http://www.nature.com/hdy/index.html.

This month we find out if inbreeding spells doom for endangered populations, whether bottlenecks can lead to degeneration of genes, how X chromosome influences sperm length and much more.

Rapid Correspondence - Inheritance of litter size in arctic foxes

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:39:54 +0000

After reading with interest the recent paper by Axenovich et al. (Heredity 98:99-105) and the commentary on it by R F Nespolo (Heredity 98:63-64), Philip Hedrick has written this short commentary on their findings that puts their conclusions in a familiar context for the readers of Heredity.

Comment on Heredity papers here

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:44:13 +0000

Please reply to this post to comment on a paper published in Heredity.

Your chance to respond

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:36:47 +0000

There is a widespread view that peer-review could be improved, using the opportunities provided by the web; see here: http://blogs.nature.com/peer-to-peer/

Another model is to publish papers accompanied by referees’ comments, and correspondence columns offer an analogous forum to air legitimate differences of scientific opinion.

This blog will attempt to combine some of the better aspects of these approaches. It will evolve in the light of Heredity readers and authors’ recommendations, but I have in mind that we will use it to

1) Publish rapid feedback on papers that have appeared in Heredity: the paper is wrong because … , readers should also see paper x because … . i.e. something like a correspondence section of a journal, but with the merit of being very fast and brief. The more incisive or interesting comments could be published in print.
2) Publish comments provided for public consumption by the referees: the paper is controversial because … but I recommend publication because … .
3) To publish discussion on the editorial direction of the journal. In large part the content of Heredity is determined by what is submitted, but the News & Commentaries, Short Reviews and Special Issues are commissioned. Are we neglecting important areas?

Contributions will be screened before being posted. Please reply to the appropriate topics to contribute.