Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionSeptember 24, 2020 |
|---|
|
PONE-D-20-30203 Increase of control efficacy of Nesidiocoris tenuis (Hemiptera: Miridae) in the greenhouse by enhancing its establishment using UV-LED light PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Lee, 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. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 10 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Antonio Biondi, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments: Your manuscript has been reviewed by three qualified referees. All of them were very critic with the manuscript quality, one recommended rejection, one was unsure whether rejecting or suggesting major revision and another thought that it is needed to read a revised version of it before giving a final decision. I actually agree with the latter. Therefore I invite the authors to fully follow the reviewer comments while preparing the new, deeply revised, manuscript version. Particular attention should be paid on the field data design (too preliminary and with not well designed experiments), on the writing style (not suitable for an international journal), reference and topic considerations. Finally, I am not sure you made all raw data underlying the findings in your manuscript fully available, please read the PLOS Data policy and add supplementary electronic material if needed. Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Partly Reviewer #2: Partly Reviewer #3: Partly ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: N/A ********** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: No ********** 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: Major comments The manuscript intituled “Increase of control efficacy of Nesidiocoris tenuis (Hemiptera: Miridae) in the greenhouse by enhancing its establishment using UV-LED light” presents new finds concerning B. tabaci control by using N. tenuis and several kind of wavelengths. The introduction section should be enhanced, specifically concerning the biological traits of B. tabaci and N. tenuis. The objective of this work need be better explained. The manuscript presents several parts without link (i.e. i. why the authors used less insects in the experiment 2? ii. Why it was choose the predator wavelengths preference in greenhouse experiment? Etc). Additionally, the manuscript is poorly referenced. Finally, the whole manuscript ought to be revised by a native speaker. Minor comments L16: Replace “is a biological control agent for controlling” to “ is one of the biological control agents against..” L17: I suggest to use: “The successful..”, “pests..”, and “for effective..” L19-21: Why the authors want to attract B. tabaci for crops? In fact, you should attract natural enemies and repel pests. You need to write the goals more clearly. L21: “LED light at a wavelength..” L21-22: Incomplete statement, revise. L27: “at a wavelength..” L32: B. tabaci is a polyphagous pest, as you showed in your text; it appears that B. tabaci is a problem only for the cultures cited. Revise! L38-39: Explain better about alternatives to control B. tabaci. References suggested: 1. FEKRI, Masoomeh Samareh et al. The combined effect of some plant extracts and pesticide Pymetrozine and two tomato varieties on biological characteristics of Bemisia tabaci (Homoptera: Aleyrodidae) in greenhouse conditions. Entomologia Generalis, p. 229-242, 2016. 2. SOARES, Marianne A. et al. Detrimental sublethal effects hamper the effective use of natural and chemical pesticides in combination with a key natural enemy of Bemisia tabaci on tomato. Pest Management Science, 2020. 3. DONG, Yong‐Cheng et al. Nitrogen and water inputs to tomato plant do not trigger bottom‐up effects on a leafminer parasitoid through host and non‐host exposures. Pest management science, v. 74, n. 3, p. 516-522, 2018. 4. LYKOURESSIS, Dionyssios P. et al. Predation rates of Macrolophus pygmaeus (Hemiptera: Miridae) on different densities of eggs and nymphal instars of the greenhouse whitefly trialeurodes vaporariorum (Homoptera: Aleyrodidae). Entomologia generalis, v. 32, n. 2, p. 105-112, 2009. L44-45: References suggested about the control of pests provided by N. tenuis. 1. BIONDI, Antonio et al. Can alternative host plant and prey affect phytophagy and biological control by the zoophytophagous mirid Nesidiocoris tenuis?. BioControl, v. 61, n. 1, p. 79-90, 2016. 2. CAMPOS, Mateus R. et al. From the Western Palaearctic region to beyond: Tuta absoluta 10 years after invading Europe. Journal of Pest Science, v. 90, n. 3, p. 787-796, 2017. 3. BIONDI, Antonio et al. Ecology, worldwide spread, and management of the invasive South American tomato pinworm, Tuta absoluta: past, present, and future. Annual Review of Entomology, v. 63, p. 239-258, 2018. 4. SOARES, Marianne A. et al. Botanical insecticide and natural enemies: a potential combination for pest management against Tuta absoluta. Journal of Pest Science, v. 92, n. 4, p. 1433-1443, 2019. 5. DESNEUX, Nicolas et al. Biological invasion of European tomato crops by Tuta absoluta: ecology, geographic expansion and prospects for biological control. Journal of pest science, v. 83, n. 3, p. 197-215, 2010. L53: Replace “settlement” to “establishment” L70: As I told before, the objectives should be clearer. L82: What does meaning “for ca. 1 h”? Unclear! ” Figure legend: Provide all legends in a single page. Consequently, you should remove these legends from the continuous text. L84: Remove both “(S.D.)” L90: Replace “B. tabaci” to “Bemisia tabaci”. After dot all scientific names should write unabbreviated L94: Did you observe cannibalism between nymphs and adults? L96: I totally disagree with all title of the experiments. In fact, the title is a brief of each experiment. Revise all! L98: “To find the proper” L110: Male or female? Age? Provide in the manuscript. L11: Did you use a yellow trap? Provide in the manuscript. L113-115: Move to “statistical analysis” section L122: Remove both “(S.D.)” L127: How many insects were used in each replication? L131: Replace “petri” to “Petri”. Revise the complete manuscript. L135: Replace “to provide refuge” to “to provide refuge and food substrate” L135: Replace “also” to “additionally” L163-165: Move to “statistical analysis” section L169-176: In my opinion, this part is useless. You can just mention that this preliminary test was carried out before the real experiment. L200-202: You can omit this information. L210: Why in the experiment 2 less insects than the experiment 1 were released? L218-227: You should provide this information in your table. Think to optimize how to show the information in your manuscript. L227: Replace “Between” to “among L230-231: Use the scientific language. L231-233: There is no sense in this affirmation. Revise to use the correct statistical analysis! Additionally, You should move this part to statistical analysis section. L239-240: It seems results! Revise! L242-248: You should provide this information in your table. Table 3 – The statistical analysis in no response results looks wrong. Are you sure that all is letter a? L257-258: It seems discussion. L279-287: These results could fit well in one table. L411-415: Very confusing! Why it was choose the predator preference? L449-450: Explain better. L460-462: Reference Reviewer #2: I read this interesting paper with pleasure. A part from some minor needed corrections (mostly on writing, citations and small details) pointed out in the specific comments below, I have a very major concern on the field assay. In that trial authors did not ensure the isolation of the crop with the environment around, this led major doubts on the obtained results. Moreover, in the first attempt they released a very few predators that did not allow to get reliable results. Finally, a varying number of insect pest was used among the two field trials. Unfortunately, all of this does allow to have a sound experimental setup. Therefore, my best suggestion is to delete (from all relevant sections, included the title) the greenhouse part of this manuscript. L16: I suggest this first sentence: “The zoophytophagous mirid bug Nesidiocoris tenuis is a biological control agent of the whitefly Bemisia tabaci……” L18: “the” may be added between “with” and “pest” L24: which wavelength? The same? May be “this wavelength” or “the same wavelength”? L28-29: I suggest: “in early establishment of this predatory mirid bug,…” “and proper control of the whitefly” L33: add “on” before “them” L35: add “the” before “tomato” L38: change “B. tabaci” to “this insect pest”. Please revise the whole manuscript for this. Indeed, it is not nice and elegant writing so many times the same word, even though is a species names. L38: add “strategies” between “control” and “has” L43: add “pest” before “biological control” L45: here it could be good if authors cite also two major and recent review articles in which the role of N. tenuis on T. absoluta predations is emphasized (doi: 10.1146/annurev-ento-031616-034933; doi: 10.1127/entomologia/2018/0749) L49-52: I suggest authors to include here a statement about the study of Naselli et al. 2017 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-016-9481-5) who evaluated the potential of plant volatiles belonging from alternative host plants as useful tool for managing the mirid behaviour and potentially reduce its feeding activity on cultivated (i.e. tomato) plants.. L54: citations on prey and alternative prey availability need to be included (e.g., DOI 10.1007/s10526-015-9700-5. Doi: 10.1127/entomologia/2019/0824). Moreover, s the role of alternative and banker plants would need to be at least mentioned here as well (e.g., DOI: 10.1127/entomologia/2019/0625; doi: DOI: 10.1080/09670874.2012.659229) L56-58: confusing statements. Please rephrase L67: change “establishment of N. tenuis” to “establishment of this predatory mirid bug” L68: change “help control pests such as B. tabaci” to “help pest (i.e., B. tabaci) control” L68-69: In my opinion the sentence “In addition, ….. agent.” Is repetitive and not necessary here. I suggest deleting it. L74-75: as currently written seems that “enhancing spatial coherence … could successfully control B. tabaci”. I think a verb is needed between “successfully” and “control” (maybe improve, ameliorate, etc). Alternatively sentence modifications should be done to make sense to the statement. L77: change “Methods” to “methods” L78: “Test insects” does not sound good to me. Please provide a better subtitle L82. Spell out the whole genus name after “use.” L82: Please specify if the commercial N. tenuis specimens were used only to start the laboratory rearing. It is not clear in the current sentence text. L89: change “This” to “These” or start the sentence with some words like “Newly obtained N. tenuis adults…” or similar. L90: see the comment of line 82 L92: provide mean values ± S.D. or S.E. if possible L100-101: provide specifications about position, size, orientation etc. of the transparent sticky trap inside Y-tube branches L102: how these LED light were applied (position, distance, lighted surface)? please specify L109: specify if 30 specimens were used for each replication (L106) (for a total of 150 specimens per tested wavelength) or in total. It is not completely clear. L110-111: 50 B. tabaci specimens per tested wavelength in total? had you replications? Please provide more details about this relevant trial aspect L117-118: confusing title, please rephrase L178: the “Experimental design and sampling method” section is too long and sometimes redundant. Statement such as “Most UV-C from the sun is absorbed into the ozone layer.” could be deleted. General contents should focus on relevant aspects. I suggest rephrasing most of this section by writing concisely and linearly. Sentences of lines 202-206 should come before those of lines 199-202. L228: you stated “June 19, the last release date of N. tenuis” but the last release was “on June 14”. Please verify and/or correct L263-265: I suggest deleting percentage values from the statement “Five wavelengths attracted … > 405 nm (41.6%).” because it is repetitive. Indeed, reported results occur in table 2 and some in lines 261-262. (may be better: “385 nm > 365 nm > 445 ………”) L268: I suggest adding a specification about the statement “except for wavelength at 445 nm”. As it is currently written, it could seem that 445 nm was the most attractive while it was the least attractive. Please modify or provide specifications L330-332: P values do not confirm that “not significantly different”. Verify and clarify L337-339: this should be moved to the discussion L354-355: “seemed to help the control the activity of N. tenuis”. Provide correction L357-358: these statements should be moved to the discussion L390-391: this statement should be moved to the discussion L411-412: spell out the genus after the point “preference. N.” L452-454: confusing sentence. Rephrase Reviewer #3: The manuscript “ Increase of control efficacy of Nesidiocoris tenuis (Hemiptera: Miridae) in the greenhouse by enhancing its establishment using UV-LED light”, study the attraction and effect of Led Light on Nesidiocoris tenuis and the herbivore Bemisia tabaci, under laboratory and greenhouse conditions. In general, the objective of the work seems interesting to me. However, I have doubts about recommending publishing this paper in PlosOne. In general, I found some problems with this manuscript in terms of title, the purpose of study, experiments, and results from interpretation. Thus, I really have some concerns about this work, which could be a problem to publish in this journal. At least for this reviewer, the ms needs a review of the English language. Furthermore, some wordings are challenging to understand ("spatial coherence", “settlement”, "spatial separation", etc…). Some of the main concerns and problems are as follows: Title: The title is tough to understand, at least for this reviewer. I suggest to try with something like this: “LED lights enhance the establishment and biological control efficacy of N. tenuis”. Introduction: Authors introduce both insects well; however, at least for this reviewer, the introduction section should have a better hypothesis of the work and made the objectives clear. Line 40-42: This paragraph should move below after to introduce N. tenuis. Line 50-52: There are also alternative food sources as sugars that reduce this damage in tomato plants, authors should be a reference to these works... Line 59: There are also alternative food sources as sugars that improve the establishment of N. tenuis in tomato plants; authors should be a reference to these works... Line 66: Authors should make the hypothesis of the study more clear Line 72: Why the authors want to attract B. tabaci to tomato plants?? Could this attraction be a detriment for N. tenuis biocontrol? M&M: Line 81: “25ºC” needs (± SE). Here and throughout the manuscript. Line 82: “at 25ºC for ca. 1h before use”, at least for this reviewer, this is a little bit misleading if these N. tenuis are for rearing. Line 88: Why the authors use eggs of C. cautella to evaluate the predation rate instead of other eggs source (e.g. Tuta absoluta, Ephestia kuehniella)? Line 89: Which N.tenuis? How old are N. tenuis used in ALL the experiments? Are males or females? Line 96: Although the Y-tube results seem that the response of B. tabaci and N. tenuis are reliable enough. I think that the methodology of this experiment needs to be more explicit. How the authors separated the “lighting zone”? Is there any work that used this methodology for light attraction? Line 100: “branches” means “arms”? Line 108: “About 30 N. tenuis”?. The authors need to be more concise. Line 110: “Approximately 50 B. tabaci”?. The authors need to be more concise. Line 117: this section evaluates the predation rate. It is okay. However, how the authors evaluate the establishment? Line 152: Which is the second experiment? Line 198: N. tenuis population includes nymphs and adults? Also, for the predation experiment? Line 199: all the tomato plant leaves were counted?? Line 203-204: “7 to 20 N. tenuis were release”? The number of N. tenuis released is essential for results interpretation. Line 204-205: same for the number of B. tabaci Line 221: Calvo et al. 2012 showed that 0.25-0.5 N. tenuis per plant was a good release range. Results: Line 258: Removed this sentence Table 2: It is known that results from Y-tube should be shown in vertical bars figures. For this reason, at least for this reviewer, results from the Y-tube will be better represented by figures (e.g. left side responders to different LED light treatments, right side responders to control treatment, and outside the figure but next to it, the number of individuals who did not respond should be included). Greenhouse experiments: Why did the authors not use a GLMM to analyze the greenhouse data?? This model can include factors as the date and interaction date*treatment… Line 354: “In N. tenuis released plots, 385 nm wavelength LED light seemed to help the control the activity of N. tenuis for B. tabaci”. However, when you showed the figure, there are no differences between treatments in B. tabaci populations…It seems that LED lights did not affect B. tabaci control by N. tenuis. Line 368: At least for this reviewer, it is hard to understand how the percentage of control value of B. tabaci + N. tenuis + LED are higher in all the sample dates if the B. tabaci levels are not significantly different. Line 371: The experiment 2 showed that LED lights' effect on B. tabaci populations reductions correlated with N. tenuis populations increases. The authors should justify better the results of the first experiment throughout the discussion. Discussion In my consideration, the discussion should be rewritten again. Authors need to be more consistent with their results and then discuss better with other works. There are a large number of sentences that need references. Line 421 -422 and Line 433-434 are almost the same sentences. In my opinion, I removed the first one because this sentence here did not match the flow of the discussion. Line 439 and line 443: “supported results of the greenhouse experiment” (experiment 1 or 2?) Line 450: Figure 8. From where are these temperature and humidity data? Which greenhouse? If authors represent each day's abiotic conditions, they should put the temperature, and RH mean and SE. Line 468-469: Experiment 1 or 2? ********** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 1 |
|
PONE-D-20-30203R1 UV-LED Lights Enhance the Establishment and Biological Control Efficacy of Nesidiocoris tenuis (Reuter) (Hemiptera: Miridae) in the Greenhouse PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Lee, 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. ============================== Your manuscript has been re-reviewed by two referees. They both provided very important criticisms, especially on the suitability of the greenhouse experiment. I concur with them on the fact that such portion of the manuscript should be deleted and the whole document revised according to this major change. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 30 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Antonio Biondi, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: (No Response) Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed ********** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Partly Reviewer #3: Partly ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: N/A Reviewer #3: N/A ********** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: No ********** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: No ********** 6. 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 #2: Authors re-submitted a new version of the manuscript where they ameliorated some minor concerns. The current version appears properly written and referenced, even if some changes are still necessary (see specific comments). However, I renew my strong doubts about the methods employed for conducting the greenhouse trials (occurrence of the pest before starting trials, varying number of insect pest released in different times, release of very few predators) and consequently I confirm my first recommendation to delete (from all relevant sections, included the title) the greenhouse part of this manuscript. Indeed, in my opinion, all the above reasons do not allow to have a sound experimental setup. Specific comments: L21: add “its” before “co-occurrence” L21-22: add “programs” before “in greenhouses” L24: change “crop” to “crops” L67: I suggest to delete “and use” and to say directly “Alternative food sources and banker plants can be used…” L72: add “the” before “application” L85: I suggest to use “for pest (i.e., B. tabaci) control” L122 and 125: the use of the abbreviation in “40 mm “dia”” and “45 mm “ext. dia”” does not sound good to me, please check the journal guidelines and make changes if necessary L131-132: a verb seems to be missing in this sentence, please correct it L218: may be “considered” despite of “consider”? L220: may be “consider” and “tested” despite of “considered” and “test”? L227: change contained” to “consisted of” L246 - Table 1: Were the releases of “B. tabaci + N. tenuis +LED” the same of “B. tabaci + N. tenuis”? Please, make the Table more intelligible and clarify/specify the aforementioned doubt L276: correct “desired” L287: change “Mean” to “mean” Reviewer #3: Although the authors have improved the paper compared to the first submission, at least for me, they have not made enough adjustments to have the manuscript ready for acceptance. My primary concern is the part of the greenhouse experiments. At least for this reviewer, the methodology of greenhouse experiments is misleading and is not strong enough to be published in this journal (i.e., the numbers of the whiteflies and N. tenuis used in the experiments). I read the reviewer 2 comments, and this reviewer recommended removing the greenhouse experiments (which I partly agree with), however authors did not remove it. At least for this reviewer, authors should do the experiment again under greenhouse conditions or try to remove it from the study; however, this reviewer is not sure if the study will be too short. Furthermore, the answer to points 15 and 16 (of the reviewer 3) made by authors is questionable concerning this topic. 15. Reviewer comment: Line 108: “About 30 N. tenuis”?. The authors need to be more concise. 16. Reviewer comment: Line 110: “Approximately 50 B. tabaci”?. The authors need to be more concise. Our response: For every replication of our Y-tube test, we collected the insects using an electric aspirator by counting the number of insects. Some insects were escaped in the process of input to Y-tube, and sometimes, insects were collected more than that we counted. It was tough to count in the bottle of aspirator because it was always moving. Of course, we can make them knock out in a moment by freezing. However, we thought that it would be some stress on them. Moreover, we just counted again after the experiment. So, there was some variance in the insect number. That is why we used “about” or “approximately” in lines 108 and 110 of the original manuscript. There are many ways to know the total number of insects used in the experiments. At least for this reviewer, the numbers of insects used for the experiments are very important and help make the study more concise for a potential publication in a scientific journal. However, I consider that I mistake by correcting when I suggest representing the Y-tube results (Table 2 and 3) in a figure with vertical bars. I want to say horizontal bars (similarly to Naselli's figure that the authors used to answer my suggestion), with the non-responders individuals between brackets in the corresponding bars. Minor comments - Change “Exp. #1” to “Experiment 1” throughout all the manuscript, experiments (2, 3, and 4), including the subheadings. - Change “branches” by “arms” about the y-tube. - Why are the ±SE of the abiotic conditions (Temperature and relative humidity) too high? ********** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 2 |
|
UV-LED Lights Enhance the Establishment and Biological Control Efficacy of Nesidiocoris tenuis (Reuter) (Hemiptera: Miridae) PONE-D-20-30203R2 Dear Dr. Lee, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Antonio Biondi, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: |
| Formally Accepted |
|
PONE-D-20-30203R2 UV-LED Lights Enhance the Establishment and Biological Control Efficacy of Nesidiocoris tenuis (Reuter) (Hemiptera: Miridae) Dear Dr. Lee: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Antonio Biondi Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
Open letter on the publication of peer review reports
PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.
We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.
Learn more at ASAPbio .