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In the developing world major public health issues such as malnutrition and compromised physical development are intimately linked to altered gut morphology and function with underlying chronic inflammatory responses. In these societies the downward spiral of malnutrition and infections does not seem to be remedied by well-informed nutritional interventions that supplement the identified nutrient deficiencies, suggesting that additional strategies are needed. The aim of this scientific opinion paper is to consider how a child from the developing world might benefit, separately and additively, from interventions targeted to impact hygiene, nutritional status, disease resistance and gut function, if successful interventions could be found. A failure to tackle environmental enteropathy (EE) may be a critical limiting factor that can explain the relative lack of success of interventions focussed on micronutrient supplementation so far. Therefore this paper starts with a summary of the aetiology and consequences of EE on child health and the current recommendations aimed at tackling this problem. Then a number of hypotheses will be considered in terms of research strategy to positively affect nutritional status, intestinal health and growth of children with EE, with the aim of inspiring future innovative strategies, for both the food industry and the public health sector, which could benefit millions of children.

Under the ecological theory of adaptive radiation, adaptation and reproductive isolation are thought to evolve as a result of divergent natural selection. Accordingly, elucidating the genetic basis of these processes is essential toward understanding the role of selection in shaping biological diversity. In this respect, the number of genes that evolved by selection remains contentious. To address this issue, the pattern of genetic differentiation obtained using 440 AFLP loci was compared with that expected under neutrality in four sympatric pairs of lake whitefish ecotypes that evolved adaptive phenotypic differences associated with the exploitation of distinct ecological niches. On average, 14 loci showed restricted gene flow relative to neutral expectation, suggesting a role of directional selection on their divergence. Among all loci that are most likely under directional selection, six exhibited parallel patterns of divergence, which provided further support for the role of selection in driving their divergence. Overall, these results indicate that only a small proportion of scored AFLP loci (between 1.4% and 3.2%) might be linked to genes implicated in the adaptive radiation of lake whitefish.