Evolutionary Applications has now published two more issues (issues 5.6 and 5.7). We are delighted by the high quality of submissions to the journal since its transition to open access. Now all the articles are available for all to read, download and share! The editorial team have highlighted two top papers from these issues. We hope you enjoy reading these papers and consider submitting your paper to Evolutionary Applications. For information about the kinds of papers published by the journal please visit the journal’s aims and scopes.

Drugs that target pathogen public goods are robust against evolved drug resistance by John W. Pepper
Commentary: This paper exemplifies the type of work which is ideally suited to publication in Evolutionary Applications – creative, evolutionary, and applied.  The author uses mathematical models to examine whether pathogens would evolve resistance to drugs that targeted the metabolites that pathogens make, rather than the pathogens’ cells.  This type of research can open doors for developing new types of drugs and vaccines.

Genomic regions in crop–wild hybrids of lettuce are affected differently in different environments: implications for crop breeding by Yorike Hartman, Danny A. P. Hooftman, Brigitte Uwimana, Clemens C. M. van de Wiel, Marinus J. M. Smulders, Richard G. F. Visser and Peter H. van Tienderen
Commentary: One reason for the common fear of genetically modified organisms is that the genes that are inserted into the crop can spread into non-crop organisms via hybridization. If crop-wild hybrids have higher fitness than the crop itself, then the ‘gene’ could spread throughout the hybrid or wild population.  But, after you cross a crop with a wild relative, some areas of the crop-wild hybrid genome are associated with increases in hybrid fitness, some areas as associated with decreases in hybrid fitness.  Thus, if you introduce the ‘gene’ into an area that is associated with low fitness in crop-wild hybrids, then you would not expect the ‘gene’ to spread.  The authors of this paper look for areas of the genome in a lettuce-wild hybrid that are associated with high fitness, and with low fitness.  They describe these different genomic regions and discuss the possible fate of an introduced ‘gene’.

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