PONE-D-20-29241

Different selection practices affect the environmental sensitivity of beef cattle

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. de Paula Freitas,

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Raluca Mateescu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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?

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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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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: 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: I compliment the authors on this work. It is a very good data set and an interesting project. I don't have concerns about the analysis or presentation of results. I do have some concern about possible over-interpretation of results. Some findings are certainly as expected, less GxE for SW than DFC, for example. We have found similar trends for growth traits versus stayability. I am not convinced that differences among the selection lines should be strong enough to explain the differences among the Spearman correlations presented in Table 2. These correlations vary quite markedly. How reliable are they? What are the biological explanations for these differences. Further, it would enhance the value of the paper to have greater discussion of the implications of the work. Even a few sentences would be helpful.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript addresses an important topic, is scientifically sound and well written. Below are some suggestions and a couple of errors that need to be corrected.

108 Should it read “Starting in 2012…”

109 More detail needs to be given on this selection scheme and how this altered the selection for weight

120 This should read :…by adding the adjusted weight…”

123 Same as above, add adjusted

126 This is confusing, "what is meant by SW of females was adjusted later"? Wasn't this already explained in the preceding sentences? If so, this sentence should be eliminated

131 Should this be "outside the expected calving season"? If so, how was that determined?

147 Should it be “…had no records for some studied years.”?

177 How would selection for weight impact this covariate?

229 Shouldn't these be reversed? Unfavorable CG should have the greatest number of days to first calving

252 Based on the Figure 1, I think these are the values for DFC and the values listed for DFC are for SC. Either the text is wrong or the figure is wrong.

258 A table with these correlations may be helpful.

369 For the other two traits you reported the percentage of plastic and extremely plastic; I recommend being consistent in reporting

407 This was not a response to selection, there was no selection for SC. We would expect a satisfactory response to selection for SC based on the heritabilities

486 There was little difference between the selection practices between NeT and NeS until late in the study. In the absence of extreme inbreeding along with extreme selection for the trait of interest, little reduction in genetic variation would be anticipated

527 This is to be expected since there is a strong genetic correlation between weight and SC and little genetic correlation between weight and DFC.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Different selection practices affect the environmental sensitivity of beef cattle

PONE-D-20-29241R1

Dear Dr. de Paula Freitas,

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.

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Kind regards,

Raluca Mateescu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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