PONE-D-19-25167

Ritualized aggressive behavior reveals distinct social structures in native and introduced range tawny crazy ants

PLOS ONE

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: This paper provides new data and novel insights into the biology of an invasive ant by providing data on its colony structure in both its native and introduced range. The paper is very well written. The introduction does a very good job putting this work into a general context and the methods are clear allowing the study to be replicated.

All of my suggestions are minor.

Editorial Suggestions:

Line 85-86. Change to “However, few of these species have had their social organization described in both native and introduced populations.”

Line 177. The comma after “Texas” can be deleted.

Line 121. Change “Not collected” to “missed by this collection method.”?

Line 208. The first sentence of this section (Aggression scale) is a bit of confusing without more context. “Observations of nest-pairs not included in further analyses were used to adapt standard aggression scales developed to quantify interactions between Argentine ants[34,35] to interactions between N. fulva workers” Can you better explain the context of what you mean / what you are doing here.

Line 401. “Stark” can be deleted.

Line 404-408. This is interesting and worth following up on. The authors could consider adding a graph / table comparing intra- versus inter-specific pattern of aggression to quantify this difference as part of the paper (just a suggestion).

Line 424. This paragraph could be better developed in terms of social structure generally in ants. Are there other examples that can be discussed that similar to what is seen here? Are there examples of non-transitive behaviors among colonies. Why do these occur?

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Reviewer #1: No

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Ritualized aggressive behavior reveals distinct social structures in native and introduced range tawny crazy ants

PONE-D-19-25167R1

Dear Dr. LeBrun,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

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With kind regards,

Nicolas Chaline

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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