Mus musculus populations in Western Australia lack VKORC1 mutations conferring resistance to first generation anticoagulant rodenticides: Implications for conservation and biosecurity

PONE-D-20-20557

Dear Dr. Bridget Judith Maria Lucrezia Duncan,

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competing interests:

Bridget Duncan received $2000 from the Centre for Ecosystem Management (CEM).

Bridget received an additional $1900 from CEM as a travel grant to participate to the

Ecological Society of Australia conference in 2019.

Annette Koenders is a committee member of CEM."

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Reviewers' comments:

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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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Reviewer #1: This work is interesting and well designed, I have two comments.

1- With respect to the sample size, specially in the Browse island, I consider that it is small to totally discard the existence of mutations associated to resistance. Although the authors provide data supporting the view that the number of rodents analyzed was enough according to the expected prevalence of mutations, I think that the effect of low sample size is more likely than they suggest.

2- I agree with the suggestion of the authors that resistance test as BCR or feeding tests would be useful to confirm the absence of resistance in the studied populations

3- Information about the spatial distribution of samples would be useful because resistance may be spatially aggregated, and if samples are from few neighbor localities they are not representative.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Maria Busch