In contrast to the large amount of ecological information supporting the role of natural selection as a main cause of population divergence and speciation, an understanding of the genomic basis underlying those processes is in its infancy. In this paper, we review the main findings of a long-term research programme that we have been conducting on the ecological genomics of sympatric forms of whitefish ( Coregonus spp.) engaged in the process of speciation. We present this system as an example of how applying a combination of approaches under the conceptual framework of the theory of adaptive radiation has yielded substantial insight into evolutionary processes in a non-model species. We also discuss how the joint use of recent biotechnological developments will provide a powerful means to address issues raised by observations made to date. Namely, we present data illustrating the potential offered by combining next generation sequencing technologies with other genomic approaches to reveal the genomic bases of adaptive divergence and reproductive isolation. Given increasing access to these new genomic tools, we argue that non-model species studied in their ecological context such as whitefish will play an increasingly important role in generalizing knowledge of speciation.

Peer review of research articles is a core part of our scholarly communication system. In spite of its importance, the status and purpose of peer review is often contested. What is its role in our modern digital research and communications infrastructure? Does it perform to the high standards with which it is generally regarded? Studies of peer review have shown that it is prone to bias and abuse in numerous dimensions, frequently unreliable, and can fail to detect even fraudulent research. With the advent of web technologies, we are now witnessing a phase of innovation and experimentation in our approaches to peer review. These developments prompted us to examine emerging models of peer review from a range of disciplines and venues, and to ask how they might address some of the issues with our current systems of peer review. We examine the functionality of a range of social Web platforms, and compare these with the traits underlying a viable peer review system: quality control, quantified performance metrics as engagement incentives, and certification and reputation. Ideally, any new systems will demonstrate that they out-perform and reduce the biases of existing models as much as possible. We conclude that there is considerable scope for new peer review initiatives to be developed, each with their own potential issues and advantages. We also propose a novel hybrid platform model that could, at least partially, resolve many of the socio-technical issues associated with peer review, and potentially disrupt the entire scholarly communication system. Success for any such development relies on reaching a critical threshold of research community engagement with both the process and the platform, and therefore cannot be achieved without a significant change of incentives in research environments.

The data underlying scientific papers should be accessible to researchers both now and in the future, but how best can we ensure that these data are available? Here we examine the effectiveness of four approaches to data archiving: no stated archiving policy, recommending (but not requiring) archiving, and two versions of mandating data deposition at acceptance. We control for differences between data types by trying to obtain data from papers that use a single, widespread population genetic analysis, structure . At one extreme, we found that mandated data archiving policies that require the inclusion of a data availability statement in the manuscript improve the odds of finding the data online almost 1000‐fold compared to having no policy. However, archiving rates at journals with less stringent policies were only very slightly higher than those with no policy at all. We also assessed the effectiveness of asking for data directly from authors and obtained over half of the requested datasets, albeit with ~8 d delay and some disagreement with authors. Given the long‐term benefits of data accessibility to the academic community, we believe that journal‐based mandatory data archiving policies and mandatory data availability statements should be more widely adopted.—Vines, T. H., Andrew, R. L., Bock, D. G., Franklin, M. T., Gilbert, K. J., Kane, N. C., Moore, J‐S., Moyers, B. T., Renaut, S., Rennison, D. J., Veen, T., Yeaman, S. Mandated data archiving greatly improves access to research data. FASEB J. 27, 1304–1308 (2013). www.fasebj.org