Presented by Editor-in-Chief, Michael W Bruford nature/hdy

1. How to Get Your Paper Published in Heredity Presented by Editor-in-Chief, Michael W Bruford www.nature.com/hdy

2. First published in 1947 • 12 issues a year • Print and online publication • Impact Factor 4.118 • Approximately 430 submissions received each year, ~70% rejected • Over 1,300,000 page views to the Heredity website and 650,000 article downloads • Table of Contents alerts are sent to 78,000 registrants • International readership= 46% subscribers are from North America/ 28% are from Europe/ 19% are from Rest of World and 7% are from Japan

3. Journal scope and content Heredityparticularly encourages submissions in the following areas: • population genetics (including human) • genomics, functional genomics and proteomics • evo-devo • biometrical and statistical genetics • ecological and evolutionary genetics • animal and plant breeding • cytogenetics Heredity's original articles cover new theory and primary empirical research. The journal also publishes regular reviews and news & commentary articles.

4. What are Editors looking for? • Novel or original findings • Credibility • Brevity • Clarity of data and conclusions • Interesting to a broad, international readership • Good standard of English (seek help if necessary) • Compliance with ethical standards and approval by Institutional Review Board if appropriate • Disclosure of possible conflicts of interests by all authors • References complete and up-to-date

5. The peer review process Upon submission your manuscript will follow the following procedure: • The Editor will determine with the help of a board member if the manuscript is suitable for review • Title and Abstract are crucial! • If it is, a Subject Editor is assigned and the reviewer selection procedure begins • The board member receives the reviewer’s comments and then makes a recommendation to the Editor • The Editor will communicate the final decisions • Subject Editors remain anonymous and all disputes are sent to the Editor

6. What do we expect of reviewers? • Your opinion, supported by clear arguments (recommendation and ‘scoring’ are helpful, but less important) • NOT detailed language editing • NOT a précis • DO say what is most interesting, to whom and why • DO identify major issues and make recommendations for improvement • DO list minor scientific issues • DO be constructive and polite! • DO review on time • (it is better to say No quickly than to say Yes and then delay)

7. On acceptance • All manuscripts are checked for plagiarism • Data archiving is mandatory (data-specific repository, e.g. GenBank, or Dryad: datadryad.org) • Colour figures must be paid for…

8. TYPES OF REVIEW THAT I HAVE TO EXAMINE Referee 2 Comments: This is a perfect paper on a very important topic which is ready for publication. • Referee 3 Comments: • XXXX present individual-based simulations of a population that lives on an environmental gradient. Analysis of the deterministic case suggests (surprisingly) that such populations will always be able to adapt to steep gradients, by generating sufficiently high levels of genetic variance. The key question posed by XXXX is whether this remains true when the population is finite. • XXXX show that although extinction is more likely at lower population density, this is not because genetic variance is lost by drift: rather, it seems to reflect the effects of demographic stochasticity. However, this distinction is not made very clearly, and the support for the conclusion is not entirely convincing. Most important, there is virtually no comparison with theoretical expectation, even though there is a definite prediction here from the deterministic case. (The only quantitative comparison is in Table S1). • The simulations are presented thoughtfully, and the question is an interesting one. However, a major revision is needed, as suggested below. • In the abstract, it is stated that "Range limits are associated with migrational load", and later (p4), it is said that B2001 shows that species can spread across arbitrarily steep gradients. The implication is that collapse through migrational load is a consequence of finite population size. But that is not so: though the deterministic analysis shows that populations can adapt to steep gradients (as seen in these simulations), they do so at the cost of increased genetic variance, which reduces growth rate at low density. Thus, the deterministic analysis predicts a definite collapse at a critical genetic variance (see Equation in SuppInf), such that the population declines even at low density. In a balance between gene flow and stabilising selection, the genetic variance is known (it is proportional to gradient squared), and so there is a simple prediction for the critical gradient. • And so on for another 5-6 points

9. Comments: There a number of things in the paper that need to be cleaned up. The design is good but the implementation is poor. I hope you revise it appropriately. ABSTRACT Page 2 Line 27 - insert comma after Myotis lucifugus; rewrite suggestion: "...Myotis lucifugus, to create the consensus sequences (delete which were) used to..." INTRODUCTION Line 31 -change "non-Myotis" to "other" Page 3 Line 41 -insert comma after global distribution Line 43 -omit the in "...the Vespertilionidae is..." Line 44 -omit "and diverse", a google search recovers Muridae as the most diverse mammal family and Phyllostomidae are the most diverse bat family. I disagree with the usage of diverse in this context. Diverse refers to variety or differences, whereas in this context it appears to reference number of species. Line 45 -omit therefore Line 46 -insert comma after migration Line 52 -insert comma after time consuming Line 58 -insert comma after genera Line 61 -On the contrary, loci developed in Thyropteridae have amplified in both Furipteridae and Vespertilionidae (Vonhof et al. 2001). Line 72 -omit in which Lines 77-79 -citations of which resources would be beneficial and I recommend including them … and so on for several pages!

10. General comments. The tone of the ms is overly aggressive and highly critical of previous studies. One example is found on page 8 (lines 330-354). This section deals with previous studies that are based on silver staining, the authors claim that silver staining is "less accurate" than automated systems, and that this might have caused differences in results between the authors findings and previous studies. While this argument might have some bearing the authors fail to recognize problems with their own study. For instance, the present ms is based solely on juvenile fish while previous studies used adult fish. The differences in heterozygosity measured at a specific microsatellite locus (line 347 - 349) could be caused by their exclusive use of juveniles who's genetic variability is only partly representing the populations (c.f. Allendorf and Phelps 1981) and not related to silver staining. The Introduction and Discussion reviews only a small amount of the available literature about kin biased distribution in fishes. For instance, the salmonid literature is largely lacking. Detailed comments Lines 81-85 and 94-95. I do not agree that previous studies have not used "sufficiently informative markers" or that that "none of these studies has really been powerful enough...". There are several studies on kin association of wild fish that have used sufficiently informative markers and have been powerful enough to detect biological significant contributions of kin association. I strongly suggest that the author investigate the available literature on salmonids. Line 104. How do guppies differ in their reproductive strategies? There is also a need for a reference here. Lines 117-124. The criticism of previous studies belongs in the discussion. Line 134-135. This is a very important statement. But what are the downsides of using only juveniles? Perhaps, your samples are tainted with family effects (c.f. Allendorf and Phelps 1981) and the genetic variability found in the juveniles might not be an accurate representation of the entire population. … etc