Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionOctober 3, 2020 |
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PONE-D-20-31110 Turning preference in dogs: north attracts while south repels PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Burda, 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. ============================== The reviewers believed there was merit to the study, but also that they lacked all the information necessary to make firm conclusions on the result's validity and the conclusions drawn. Specifically, both reviewers felt the methods sections was not sufficiently clear. I believe that much more attention to the methods will be needed for publications. Specifically the clarification of abbreviations, and the number of trials and what where the indices were used. I felt that the description of how the experimenters were blinded also needed a great deal more clarity - e.g., state very concisely who interacted with the dogs, and who new the location of magnetic north in each experiment. The results appeared to leave the reviewers with several more questions. It is unfortunate that Fig4 was missing for the reviewers, however, both reviewer #1 and #2 had additional important questions on the interpretations of figs 2 and 3. Although new experiments may not be needed, Reviewer #1 had some important questions regarding dog-owner interactions that should be addressable and would hopefully help eliminate some potentially trivial explanations for the North pull. Additional questions on eye-laterality were brought up in response to the discussion. I believe these are important questions from reviewer #1 and please try to answer if possible. If you cannot answer them, these limitations of current knowledge should be at least addressed in the discussion. There were also questions regarding the role of the eyes in magnetic detection. Unless you have experimental data that addresses this, I believe this can also be handled in the discussion by referring to data from other vertebrate systems and clearly drawing the inferences. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 04 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, Gregg Roman, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE 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 2. Please upload a copy of Figure 4, to which you refer in your text on page 10. If the figure is no longer to be included as part of the submission please remove all reference to it within the text. 3. We note that Figure 1 includes an image of participants in the study. As per the PLOS ONE policy (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-human-subjects-research) on papers that include identifying, or potentially identifying, information, the individual(s) or parent(s)/guardian(s) must be informed of the terms of the PLOS open-access (CC-BY) license and provide specific permission for publication of these details under the terms of this license. Please download the Consent Form for Publication in a PLOS Journal (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=8ce6/plos-consent-form-english.pdf). The signed consent form should not be submitted with the manuscript, but should be securely filed in the individual's case notes. Please amend the methods section and ethics statement of the manuscript to explicitly state that the patient/participant has provided consent for publication: “The individual in this manuscript has given written informed consent (as outlined in PLOS consent form) to publish these case details”. If you are unable to obtain consent from the subjects of the photograph, you will need to remove the figure and any other textual identifying information or case descriptions for these individuals. [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: Yes ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ********** 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: Yes Reviewer #2: 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: Yes Reviewer #2: 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: There were a few places where I was a little confused about the method. For example the paragraph beginning on Line 193. I was confused about how many total trials dogs had and what exactly what meant by first choice. The sentence on Lines 220-222 I found similarly confusing. What were the 10 indices? There were not 10 mentioned so I wasn’t sure what was being explored here. Do other studies show similar patterns in laterality? That is, that about half of the dogs do not have a preference? Is laterality preference (or lack thereof) independent of the task? Or could a dog have a preference for one paw on a kong task and a preference for another paw on a different task? It could be helpful to show that the dogs’ paw laterality isn’t just random but is stable within dogs either by citing work that demonstrates that it is so or by giving these dogs a second laterality test and showing that they are consistent. I think the talk of eye dominance is interesting, but the authors’ case would be significantly strengthened by demonstrating that such eye preferences exist. In other words, is there a simple eye dominance task that the authors could do to assess the dogs’ eye dominance? Given that so much of their discussion is based on the assumption about eye dominance it would strengthen the paper significantly to show that such eye dominance exists and tracks with their predictions. Similarly, is there evidence that dogs have magnetic field receptors in their eyes? The authors mention that the dogs do not have a history of coming to heel, but I wonder about other types of owner interactions. Do owner handedness or owner turning preferences track with dogs’ preferences? There are a few awkward sentences (lines 85-88; 132-134) Where is Figure 4? Reviewer #2: In earlier outdoor experiments, dogs were found to prefer the North direction and avoid South, when choosing between two food dishes placed in front of them. In this paper, the authors repeat these experiments indoors under controlled conditions, and by shifting the north direction of the magnetic field, they demonstrate that this preference is based on the magnetic field. In the introduction, the questions are clearly stated. The description of the experimental procedure appears rather cryptic and suffers from the use of many abbreviations. The result part is hard to read. I have problems to derive from Fig. 2 a “pull of the north”, and also in Fig. 3, it is unclear what the numbers in each quadrant mean. Fig. 4 is missing altogether. The best part of the paper is definitely the discussion. I welcome the authors’ attempt to propose a promising idea for explaining why so many animals show a magnetic alignment. ********** 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 [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 |
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PONE-D-20-31110R1 Turning preference in dogs: north attracts while south repels PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Burda, 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. ============================== Along with the two reviewers, I believe your manuscript is very nearly ready for publication. I appreciate the detail with which you address the reviewers comments and concerns. Reviewer #1 had some last edits that you may wish to consider. Please consider these edits before returning the manuscript. I would especially like you to consider a change to the Fig1 legend that would make the meaning of the measures more apparent to someone less familiar with the experimental approach. Please also read through closely to make sure you catch any other existing typos before resubmission. Congratulations on a very nice paper. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 19 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, Gregg Roman, PhD 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 #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: 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 #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: I Don't Know Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 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 #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 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 #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 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 #1: Some minor things: Lines 153-162 — paragraph should be in past tense Line 219 tense shift Line 244 “according to based on” (redundant) Line 326 “more frequently" need to add "chosen” In the figure caption for Fig 1 please give a sense of what these numbers mean. - ie - left and + right? We don't need the full explanation that comes later in the text, but a sense of what these numbers are telling us would be helpful at this point. I still find the figures confusing, but I’m not an expert on how to present these results with turning preference so I leave it to the other reviewer and the editor's expertise. Reviewer #2: The text is considerably improved, and it is now easier to follow the argumentation of the authors. I think that the paper can be published now. ********** 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 #1: No Reviewer #2: 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 |
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Turning preference in dogs: north attracts while south repels PONE-D-20-31110R2 Dear Dr. Burda, 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, Gregg Roman, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-20-31110R2 Turning preference in dogs: north attracts while south repels Dear Dr. Burda: 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 Gregg Roman Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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