The linked article entitled “Estimating the Effect of Competition on Trait Evolution Using Maximum Likelihood Inference” (https://academic.oup.com/sysbio/article/65/4/700/1753588) from the journal Systematic Biology is an example of an academic peer-reviewed research article. A theoretical study on the statistical inference of competition-driven evolution, it is written by a team of theoretical ecologists, it includes in-text citations and a bibliography, has been reviewed by the reviewers at Systematic Ecology, and includes the results of a theoretical (though not a field) study with a methods and a results section. These features clearly mark it is an academic, peer-reviewed research article.