PONE-D-21-03023

Epidemiological study on gastrointestinal nematode and coccidia infections in different populations of Kazakh sheep

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yan,

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.

It was reviewed by two experts in the field, and they have recommended some modifications be made prior to acceptance.

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Kind regards,

Simon Clegg, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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"This study was financially supported by the National Gm major special project - transgenic sheep new breed breeding project (2016ZX08008001-001-002), Xinjiang Autonomous Region University scientific research project (XJED2020Y049). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Minor changes in my opinion, reads really well and think it’s a great paper. I also think that the figures are really great too.

However, I think just adding a photo of a Kazakh sheep would add some more context to this paper for readers who don’t know what one may be.

I also have a comment on a small grammar error which is found on line 44 “As the infection of Eimeria coccidia got severer, FEC appeared to increase somewhat.” – severer is not a word.

It would be really interesting in future to compare this data with another breed of sheep too.

Why was the saturated saline method used over other methods/flotation fluids?

Reviewer #2: This study researched an interesting and important issue of ovine endoparasitic infections and multiparasitism by nematodes and coccidia as well as resistance in various sheep breeds. The sample sizes were robust and it was great that all four seasons were studied. However, there were unfortunately several areas of concern:

1. Overall, the writing style was hard to follow and quite repetitive at times, which could be condensed; spelling, grammar, and sentence structure could all be improved. For example:

- "Coccidioides" are a genus of fungi

- Oocysts are often incorrectly called oocytes

- The first word of "highly significantly higher/bigger" can be removed

- Eimeria genus may be clearer than "Eimeria coccidia"

- Grade 1-4 for coccidia seems unnecessary when you can simply describe them as mild to severe as you did for GIN

- To save space and make it easier to read, solely using a percentage is better than following it with the amount of samples in brackets

2. I am unsure about the aims of this paper: are only Eimeria observed or all coccidia? If the former, then why (as all the nematodes are grouped together) and can you make this clearer in the title? Also, how will this study benefit the wider community? There is not much information on coinfection, Eimeria, seasonality/climate change, etc in the introduction.

3. There are many tables, which may be able to be merged or condensed if not moved to supplementary information rather than on the article itself. The superscript significance captions are sometimes hard to understand due to phrasing. Also, data on the sex of the sheep could be included in Table 1? Why is the data for F2 missing in Tables 8-11?

4. There are a lot of statistics (P values, OPG, etc) in your abstract, introduction, and discussion, which often should not have them. Could you describe them without using these?

5. Would using EPG (eggs per gram) be more suitable than FEC? Or alternately, FOC (fecal oocyst count) instead of OPG to keep things consistent?

6. Some of the details in the methods could be condensed.

7. The discussion could benefit by reducing the number of statistical comparisons to other studies and focusing on explaining the results more thoroughly (why they were found, potential implications/benefits, etc) as well as study limitations/improvements, wider applications, and future research. Also, the coordinates should be moved to the methods section.

8. The graphs were all very blurry and hard to read. Also, are standard error/deviation bars not required? Figure 4 should be "length by width".

I hope these suggestions help and look forward to reading the revised version. Thank you!

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Reviewer #2: No

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An epidemiological study of gastrointestinal nematode and Eimeria  coccidia infections in different populations of Kazakh sheep

PONE-D-21-03023R1

Dear Dr. Yan,

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,

Simon Clegg, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

Many thanks for resubmitting your manuscript to PLOS One

As you have addressed all the comments and the manuscript reads well, I have recommended it for publication

You should hear from the Editorial Office shortly.

If you could make the following minor modifications during editing I would be most grateful

Line 121- space between at an

Line 125- space between too at

Line 246- eggs written incorrectly

Line 315- space between above and mentioned

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

Hope you are keeping safe and well in these difficult times

Thanks

Simon