PONE-D-19-33260

Health status of free-ranging ring-necked pheasant chicks (Phasianus colchicus) in North-Western Germany

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr Siebert

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Many thanks for submitting your manuscript to PLOS One

Apologies for the delay in returning comments to you. I invited over 30 people to review this and struggled to get reviewers due to Christmas etc.

However, I managed to get three reviewers who are experts in the field to review the manuscript.

The reviewers have made some good comments to help you to improve the manuscript

If you could write a detailed response to reviewers that would be most helpful as I plan to return the manuscript to the same reviewers

I wish you every success with your revisions

Many thanks

Simon

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Simon Russell Clegg, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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1. In your Methods section, please provide additional location information of the trapping sites, including geographic coordinates for the data set if available.

2. In your Methods section, please provide additional information regarding the permits you obtained for the work. Please ensure you have included the full name of the authority that approved the field site access and, if no permits were required, a brief statement explaining why.

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4. Thank you for including the following funding information within your acknowledgements section of your manuscript; " We would also like to thank the Lower Saxony Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, the State Agency for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Ministry of Energy, Agriculture, the Environment and Rural Areas of Schleswig-Holstein for financially supporting the study. "

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

Reviewer #3: I Don't Know

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This is a very well written interesting manuscript describing the health statues of free-ranging phesants. Neverhteless, as it is presented this article is better suited for another type of journal such as Wildlife Diseases Journal (WDJ). The audinece in of WDJ would be very intersted in the authors findings.

Reviewer #2: • Inconsistent writing

• Grammatical issues (sentences not necessarily making sense or flowing nicely, not very easy to read in some cases)

• Flow from one point to another is lacking (jumps from one point to next)

• Few writing errors (no gaps between full stops, random letters throughout paragraphs)

• Sometimes no gaps between paragraphs (doesn’t look professional) and isn’t consistent with the rest of the document

• Inconsistent with giving data and results (sixteen in 54, 12 in 67 – should stick to one format etc.)

• Inconsistent explanations for doing something or none at all

Questions:

1. What acid and alkaline-free derivative substances?

2. What other factors may weaken the population?

3. Why focus on birds up to 11 weeks of age?

4. Exactly how many chicks were taken? (at maximum half isn’t an amount unless you first specify the amount caught)

5. Why did the animals have to die for you to test this?

6. Nutritional condition score previously described where?

Comments:

Don’t agree with methodology – seems counterintuitive and backwards to what they opened the paper with, and the decline was the entire reason behind the study.

Reviewer #3: This is a very interesting, novel article, offering some fantastic insights into the health of free ranging wild birds which is always tricky to undertake. I think that the authors have done a generally good job, however I do have some concerns about the manuscript which are detailed below.

Could I request that you put line numbers in please, as it makes reviewing much easier?

Abstract

Various Mycoplasma spp (Mycoplasma needs to be in italics)

Same line, space between isolated. Mycoplasma

Line starting Heterakis- Starting the line after with a percentage is not good English- consider rewording the sentence

Also avian doesn’t need a capital

Introduction

I think your opening line could do with some more details. You mention original distribution- maybe say where it was? When? Where its native to? Where it has spread etc?

3rd line- comma after release

Natural predator line and some species- maybe consider merging

Line 2- second paragraph- comma after leaves

Paragraph 3- Explain what hunting bag statistics are

Not only was the pheasant subject to decline….- consider rewording as it doesn’t make sense

In Germany, the Renewable energy act- reword this sentence as it is unclear.

At the sixth week of life ….- reword this sentence as it doesn’t make sense

Paragraph 4- line 4- typically caused by

Line below- this could merge with the report of many hunters- reword this as it doesn’t make sense

Line below that, remove the I from the start of the sentence

These pathogens infected – consider rewording this sentence as it is unclear

Materials and Methods

You mention the feather markings of the hind wings- can you insert a bit of the importance of this?

You mention the animal testing permit- does that cover all the regions which you tested? Catching chicks, line 6, comma after 2015

You say catch varied from 1 day old to 11 week old chicks- did this age of capture affect the results in any way?

You then mention the mother hen, which is the first time that she was released. I find the catching section a little hard to follow and in a slightly strange order

You also say that half of the chicks were chosen- how was this done? Randomly?

Remove full stop after Hannover

Line below- put 5 in words

The section on nutritional condition score may benefit from a bit of expansion so its clear as this is a rarely published area?

Pathomorphology section- first line is not a full sentence - it is because of the refenrec eso maybe reword it?

The first time the muscles are mentioned they probably want to be in full, rather than abbreviated to M …

Insert and between Fabricius and brain

I think its often written as 450 x g

You talk about parasite egg counts- were the infecting parasites identified?

Virology- coma after tonsils in line 1

Avian metapneumovirus doesn’t need capitals

PCR line doesn’t make sense as it is- it is because of the refenrec eso maybe reword it?

Is there any reason why you didn’t test for avian influenza?

Microbiology- how were the swabs chosen? As the different tissues will likely lead to different results

Mycoplasma culture- SP4 liquid and media need a manufacturer- maybe also some detail on the type of agar media?

Liquid and solid media were inoculated- which ones?

In the case of colour change, or after five days, an additional …. (add in commas)

Mycoplasma needs capitals and italics

Mycoplasma PCR- PBS needs a manufacturer

Not good to start a sentence with 100ul

Again Mycoplasma needs capitals and italics

First line of second paragraph doesn’t make sense- it is because of the refenrec eso maybe reword it?

Results

Why were 11 chicks gender unknown? Too young to tell?

You mention some haemorrhages in the pathomorphological section- could these have been caused during trapping?

2nd paragraph of pathomorphological section- line 5. Comma after ac3

Line 2 of paragraph 3- comma after ac3

You mention nematodes seen in the pheasants- were these further identified?

Line on intestinal mucosa displayed in all animals- reword as unclear

Coccidia needs capitalising and italicising

Were the protozoans not further identified either?

Sarcocporidia- needs capitalising and italicising

Virology section- comma after tested in first line

Line 2- remove positive by

Bacteriology section – you did 13 tracheal swabs from the 23 chicks- why was this number smaller and not one done from each?

Third line- remove that

You say via molecular biological methods- which ones- explain them please so we know

Comma after fifteen on last line of first paragraph

First line of 2nd paragraph- remove were

2nd line of 2nd paragraph- Mycoplasma wants capitals and italics

Parasitology- Line 3- spaces around the Ascaridia spp

Discussion

Line 1- observed has a typo

Line two- decline increased sounds a bit strange- consider rewording

Last two lines of paragraph one do not make sense and need rewording

Paragraph 2- line 7- comma after alterations

Line 7, remove as from start of sentence and put M gallisepticum in full

Line 9. Full stop after [42] and start a new sentence

Line 11- mycoplasma in italics

Penultimate line of paragraph 2- last but not least sounds colloquial., maybe finally?

Paragraph 3, not good to start it with a number

Paragraph 5- resulting in Dyspharynx nasuta – doesn’t make sense, consider rewording

Also last reference of paragraph 5 in capitals and incorrectly cited

And references in paragraph 6 are the same- maybe a glitch with your reference management software

Conclusions- line Line 7- hyphen seems inappropriate

End of first conclusion paragraph- maybe state that this hypothesis hasn’t been confirmed yet in pheasants

Table 4- I feel that this is a bit too big for a paper. Could this be supplementary?

It may also be nice to pull out any which were increased in the pheasants- maybe highlight them in bold?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Submitted filename: Review journal notes.docx

Health status of free-ranging ring-necked pheasant chicks (Phasianus colchicus) in North-Western Germany

PONE-D-19-33260R1

Dear Dr. Siebert

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,

Simon Clegg, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Many thanks for resubmitting your manuscript to PLOS One

I have reviewed your manuscript, and as you have addressed all the points raised in the initial review, I have recommended the manuscript for publication

You should hear from the Editorial office

It was a pleasure working with you, and I wish you all the best for your future research

Hope you are keeping safe and well in these difficult times

thanks

Simon