About the Authors

Peter M. Letcher

letch006@bama.ua.edu

Affiliation Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States of America

Salvador Lopez

Affiliation Crop Protection Group, Sapphire Energy, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Robert Schmieder

Affiliation Department of Computer Science and Computational Science Research Center, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, United States of America

Philip A. Lee

Affiliation Crop Protection Group, Sapphire Energy, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Craig Behnke

Affiliation Crop Protection Group, Sapphire Energy, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Martha J. Powell

Affiliation Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States of America

Robert C. McBride

Affiliation Crop Protection Group, Sapphire Energy, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors Salvador Lopez, Philip A. Lee, Craig Behnke, and Robert C. McBride are employees of Sapphire Energy, Inc., San Diego, CA; authors Peter M. Letcher and Robert Schmieder are paid consultants of Sapphire Energy; Martha J. Powell is an unpaid consultant of Sapphire Energy. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: PML PAL CB RCM. Performed the experiments: SL RS PAL RCM. Analyzed the data: PML SL RS PAL CB MJP RCM. Wrote the paper: PML SL RS PAL CB MJP RCM.