Exogenous corticosterone and melanin-based coloration explain variation in juvenile dispersal behaviour in the barn owl (Tyto alba)

Bettina Almasi; Carolina Massa; Lukas Jenni; Alexandre Roulin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0256038

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 10, 2021
17 May 2021 Decision Letter - Cheryl S. Rosenfeld, Editor PONE-D-21-07930 Exogenous corticosterone and melanin-based coloration explain variation in juvenile dispersal behaviour in the barn owl (Tyto alba) PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Almasi, 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. An expert individual in the field has reviewed the manuscript and found it to be of interest. However, some points require further clarification, including cause of death in some cases. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 01 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. 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Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: "YES no 3100A0-104134 to LJ no PPOOAO-102913 to AR no 2015.0788 to CM http://www.snf.ch" Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 4. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. [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: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 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 ****** 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 ****** 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 thank the authors for sharing an engaging, well-written manuscript detailing the factors that relate to juvenile dispersal in barn owls. In particular, the finding that a short-term physiological elevation of corticosterone delayed juvenile dispersal while ultimately leading to longer final dispersal distances in females and reducing survival is very interesting and makes an important contribution to this field. I have just a few questions/comments to help improve the paper, mostly about methods and analysis. Re. timing of implants: I think the text indicates this on lines 107-109, but the implants were put in at an age of 3 weeks, correct? At what age were the radio transmitters attached? Did the measurement of plumage traits and tarsus length, etc. a few days before fledging carry any risk of force fledging the nestlings? In addition, elsewhere another study is cited that mentions that these same nestlings underwent a stress series later during the nestling period – would it be possible to provide a timeline or other clear description in one place of the number of times that individuals were handled and/or sampled during the nestling period? Where the ages of handling/sampling the same in 2004 and 2005? For the individuals that were found dead, was a cause of death apparent or discernable? This seems especially important given the difference between CORT and placebo-treated birds. And finally, I noted that there were some differences between the 2 years of sampling (smaller sample sizes in 2005, different numbers of birds treated as nestlings in each nest each year, as well as different frequencies of radio tracking post-fledging). However, year is not included in any of the statistical models as far as I can tell – given these differences in experimental design, I’m a bit concerned that the results may have differed between years, because of year effects or because of design differences. I’d suggest incorporating some kind of analysis that considers year/design effects. ****** 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 [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256038.r001
Revision 1
29 Jun 2021 Author Response Dear Cheryl S. Rosenfeld Thank you for giving us the opportunity to resubmit our manuscript. Below you find our answers to the questions raised by the reviewer. Sincerely, on behalf of the co-authors, Bettina Almasi Reviewer #1: I thank the authors for sharing an engaging, well-written manuscript detailing the factors that relate to juvenile dispersal in barn owls. In particular, the finding that a short-term physiological elevation of corticosterone delayed juvenile dispersal while ultimately leading to longer final dispersal distances in females and reducing survival is very interesting and makes an important contribution to this field. I have just a few questions/comments to help improve the paper, mostly about methods and analysis. Re. timing of implants: I think the text indicates this on lines 107-109, but the implants were put in at an age of 3 weeks, correct? Our response: the nestlings received the implants at a mean age of 29 days; details are listed on line 116ff. At what age were the radio transmitters attached? Our response: Indeed, this information is missing. We added the following on line 132ff.: We attached the transmitters with a leg-loop harness (rubber band) on the back (Naef-Daenzer 2007) when nestlings were on average 49 days old (cort-juveniles: 49.6 days (range 43 – 59), placebo-juveniles: 49.3 days (41 – 59)). Did the measurement of plumage traits and tarsus length, etc. a few days before fledging carry any risk of force fledging the nestlings? Our response: There is no risk of force fledging if the nestlings are younger than 55 days of age (personal experience). However, at this visit to the nest boxes we will close the nest entrance with a net for the rare cases when nevertheless a nestling tries to jump out of the nest boxes or when the oldest nestlings are older than 55 days. Before putting the nestlings back to the nest box we close the nest entrance with a sponge attached to a long rope. A few minutes after the nestlings have been set back to the nest box we pull the rope and observe the entrance for a while. It never happens that any juvenile jumps/flies out. We added the following explanation on line 133ff: At this age juveniles were not yet able to fly which we confirmed by checking whether the transmitter signals are still coming from inside the nest boxes the day following the transmitter attachment. None of the juveniles had left the nest at this age. In addition, elsewhere another study is cited that mentions that these same nestlings underwent a stress series later during the nestling period – would it be possible to provide a timeline or other clear description in one place of the number of times that individuals were handled and/or sampled during the nestling period? Where the ages of handling/sampling the same in 2004 and 2005? Our response: We added the following information on line 108: In both years, the nest boxes were controlled regularly to monitoring the growth of the juveniles. The controls took place around hatching, when the oldest nestling reached 3 weeks, at age 25-30, age 28-32, age 32-36, age 41-43 and age 50 of the oldest nestling. During these controls the nestlings were measured and weighed and where indicated with an * blood samples to measure baseline and stress-induced corticosterone were taken (for details see Almasi et al. 2012, Almasi et al. 2009). For the individuals that were found dead, was a cause of death apparent or discernable? This seems especially important given the difference between CORT and placebo-treated birds. Our response: We added the following information in the result section on line 280ff.: Five juveniles died after collision with a car or power line (2 cort-, and 3 placebo individuals), one placebo-individual died in a slurry-tank, one cort-individual in a ventilation shaft. From then we only found remains (feathers, carcasses) and could not determine the cause of death. And finally, I noted that there were some differences between the 2 years of sampling (smaller sample sizes in 2005, different numbers of birds treated as nestlings in each nest each year, as well as different frequencies of radio tracking post-fledging). However, year is not included in any of the statistical models as far as I can tell – given these differences in experimental design, I’m a bit concerned that the results may have differed between years, because of year effects or because of design differences. I’d suggest incorporating some kind of analysis that considers year/design effects. Our response: Thank you of pointing this out. We now added the variable ‘Birth year’ in all analysis which included data of both years. Please note that we never detected any significant effect of ‘birth year’ and the results did not change whether we included birth year or not. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256038.r002
29 Jul 2021 Decision Letter - Cheryl S. Rosenfeld, Editor Exogenous corticosterone and melanin-based coloration explain variation in juvenile dispersal behaviour in the barn owl (Tyto alba) PONE-D-21-07930R1 Dear Dr. Almasi, 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, Cheryl S. Rosenfeld, DVM, PhD Section 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 ******** 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 ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: I thank the authors for their careful attention to my comments, and am happy to recommend this article for publication in Plos One. One quick note: for the additional information on nest checks (line 108), I'd suggest that the authors state that "nest boxes were checked regularly to monitor the growth..." -- using the term "checked" instead of "controlled" for clarity. ****** 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 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256038.r003
Formally Accepted
20 Aug 2021 Acceptance Letter - Cheryl S. Rosenfeld, Editor PONE-D-21-07930R1 Exogenous corticosterone and melanin-based coloration explain variation in juvenile dispersal behaviour in the barn owl (Tyto alba) Dear Dr. Almasi: 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. Cheryl S. Rosenfeld Section Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256038.r004

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