Demography and perturbation analyses of the coffee berry borer Hypothenemus hampei (Coleoptera: Curculionidae): Implications for management

Yobana A. Mariño; Paul Bayman; Alberto M. Sabat

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0260499

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 8, 2021
9 Aug 2021 Decision Letter - Patrizia Falabella, Editor PONE-D-21-18910 Demography and perturbation analyses of the coffee berry borer Hypothenemus hampei (Coleoptera: Curculionidae): implications for management PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Marino, 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 carefully follow the rewievers' requests, that you can find in this decision lettere and in the attached files, in which specific comments and corrections were provided by the reviewers. Please submit your revised manuscript by the 22nd of September. 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: "PB, USDA ARS Specific Cooperative Agreements 58-1245-4-082 and 58-1245-4-083. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf [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 Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: 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: 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: 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: This paper reported a comprehensive study on demographic parameters values on CBB rearing on artificial diet under laboratory conditions and artificial infestation under field conditions. The study was well designed and conducted. The results were properly analyzed. However, the presentation of the results and the discussion needs to be improved. This study demonstrated that biological control agents and physical conditions could affect the CBB's demographic values. This information is crucial for the CBB control. Also is demonstrating that the rm values of the CBB under field conditions could be much higher that the ones that have been reported in previous studies. Reviewer #2: The study by Marino et al. describes CBB development times under natural and laboratory conditions and conducts perturbation and elasticity analyses to determine which stages in the life cycle contribute most to population growth rate. The study is well-thought out, nicely written, the analyses seem appropriate, and the discussion is comprehensive. Overall, this represents an important contribution to the literature on this worldwide pest of coffee. I have some minor comments which should easily be addressed. I enjoyed reading this manuscript and look forward to seeing it published. L87-88: How did you decide on the environmental conditions to maintain the lab colony (why 25 C and 80-96% RH)? L124-125: Were entomological sleeves placed around the entire branch? If not, how do you know that artificial infestations were the result of lab-reared CBB and not naturally occurring CBB from neighboring trees/branches? L128: You might define larvae I vs. larvae II and pre-pupae vs. pupae. L135-138: Please explain why mortality by Bb and internal fruit rot was evaluated and how these variables relate to the overall goals of the study. L141: “Fully feral” is the same as natural, correct? I think best to stick to “natural field-infestation” so as not to confuse the reader (it could be inferred that these were infestations in wild coffee). L1579-159: Are these daily temp and RH ranges, or ranges across the entire sampling period? Table 1: Why is SE only shown for mean temp? L172: Why were lab populations followed for 50 days and artificially infested populations followed for 56 days? Was this to account for the two days over which infestation could have occurred for artificial infestations? L189: Here you say lab populations were evaluated at 56 days not 50 days? L270-275: This should be moved to discussion. L327: How could both juveniles and adults show up on same day (day 56)? Wouldn’t the presence of adults on day 56 mean that juveniles had to be present before that? Does this mean you might have missed the first appearance of juveniles? Table 2: Change “media” to “mean”. Please include SE for min and max. L523, L528: Change “parasite” to “parasitize”. L526: Add “other” before predators. L559-560: Yes, but this is because B. bassiana was not sprayed during your study, correct? Please include commonly reported rates of mortality due to B. bassiana from other studies. L587: change to “more often recommended”. L588: This is also true for other regions, such as Hawaii (see Johnson & Fortna et al. 2019). L602: add “adult” L648: Please explain why coffee species and variety would affect CBB development times. L691: I am confused by the statement “endosperm or almond from coffee fruits”. Please revise. L704: Exposition? Do you mean exposure? ****** 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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Marino_PLOSreview_ok.docx Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-18910_reviewer_ok.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260499.r001
Revision 1
27 Sep 2021 Author Response Reviewer #1. The study by Marino et al. describes CBB development times under natural and laboratory conditions and conducts perturbation and elasticity analyses to determine which stages in the life cycle contribute most to population growth rate. The study is well-thought out, nicely written, the analyses seem appropriate, and the discussion is comprehensive. Overall, this represents an important contribution to the literature on this worldwide pest of coffee. I have some minor comments which should easily be addressed. I enjoyed reading this manuscript and look forward to seeing it published. L87-88: How did you decide on the environmental conditions to maintain the lab colony (why 25 C and 80-96% RH)? We reared the CBB at 25�C because when we were tried to establish the colony, we set the chamber at 27�C (as is used in most papers on growth the CBB on artificial diets), but the diets were drying and losing humidity too fast, so we set the chamber at 25�C. We put inside the chamber containers with distilled water to maintain the humidity of the diets. We didn’t use any salt solutions to control de humidity as is described in Portilla 2000. These conditions are working well to maintain our colonies. Portilla, M. 2000. Development and evaluation of new artificial diet for mass rearing Hypothenemus hampei (Coleoptera: Scolytidae). Revista Colombiana de Entomología 26 (1-2): 31- 37. L124-125: Were entomological sleeves placed around the entire branch? If not, how do you know that artificial infestations were the result of lab-reared CBB and not naturally occurring CBB from neighboring trees/branches? Yes, the plastic bags covered the entire branch. When we removed the bag from the branch, we observed some remaining dead and alive females in these bags. The maximum number of fruits perforated per branch was 15 to 17. We are sure that no CBBs entered the bags, and the artificial infestations in field were made by the CBB females reared in the lab and placed in the bags. L128: You might define larvae I vs. larvae II and pre-pupae vs. pupae. We added three paragraphs in the introduction describing the different stages of the life cycle of the coffee berry borer. In these paragraphs we highlighted the differences between larva I vs. larva II, and prepupa vs pupa. See L 57 - 82. L135-138: Please explain why mortality by Bb and internal fruit rot was evaluated and how these variables relate to the overall goals of the study. We added a sentence in Materials and methods, explaining that natural infection with the fungus B. bassiana and fungi that cause internal fruit rot can kill CBB females. See L 195– 196. L141: “Fully feral” is the same as natural, correct? I think best to stick to “natural field-infestation” so as not to confuse the reader (it could be inferred that these were infestations in wild coffee). We agree with the reviewer. To avoid confusion, we changed ‘fully feral’ to ‘naturally.’ See L 184. L1579-159: Are these daily temp and RH ranges, or ranges across the entire sampling period? Yes, the values correspond to the period from August 11 to December 10 covering all our sampling period. These are the high and low values for the entire period. Table 1: Why is SE only shown for mean temp? We added the SE for the other variables (relative humidity and rain), see Table 1. L172: Why were lab populations followed for 50 days and artificially infested populations followed for 56 days? Was this to account for the two days over which infestation could have occurred for artificial infestations? The time for evaluations in the lab and field were different, because at 49 days in the field we didn’t observed the presence of juveniles or adults, while in the lab the first juveniles appeared at 28 days. we extended this time to 50 days to allow slower individuals (if any) to catch up, but we did not observe significant changes from day 45. L189: Here you say lab populations were evaluated at 56 days not 50 days? In this line we report the time when the first juveniles and adults appeared in the field, not in the lab. Time of evaluations in the lab was 50 days and in field was 56 days. We revised and clarified this information throughout the manuscript. See L 214 and L 230 -231. L270-275: This should be moved to discussion. We moved this information to discussion. See L 659 – 666. L327: How could both juveniles and adults show up on same day (day 56)? Wouldn’t the presence of adults on day 56 mean that juveniles had to be present before that? Does this mean you might have missed the first appearance of juveniles? Yes, we agree with the reviewer. Probably our time between evaluations of 7 days was too long, some juveniles may have appeared during this period and were not counted immediately, but according to our results from lab evaluations the mean time from pupa to juvenile was 6.3 days. See Table 2 Table 2: Change “media” to “mean”. Please include SE for min and max. We changed ‘media’ to ‘mean’. But we can’t include the SE for the values min and max, because in most of the cases we only have one data for each one. L523, L528: Change “parasite” to “parasitize”. We made this change, See L 519. L526: Add “other” before predators. We re-wrote this part of the Discussion, so this sentence was modified. L559-560: Yes, but this is because B. bassiana was not sprayed during your study, correct? Please include commonly reported rates of mortality due to B. bassiana from other studies. We added two paragraphs about the range of natural infection observed with B. bassiana, and mortality observed for lab and field experiments done with local isolates and the strain GHA from the commercial products Mycotrol® and Botanigard®. See L526 – 538. L587: change to “more often recommended”. We removed this part from the discussion, as reviewer #2 suggested we reduced this part. So this sentence was eliminated. L588: This is also true for other regions, such as Hawaii (see Johnson & Fortna et al. 2019). We added information about the results of this study. See L 553 – 556. L602: add “adult” We added the word ‘adult’ before ‘females’. See L 578. L648: Please explain why coffee species and variety would affect CBB development times. After reviewing the literature, we decided to eliminate this phrase. We only left the effect of daily temperature on CBB developmental times that was our conclusion according with the literature reviewed and cited. See L 650 – 651. L691: I am confused by the statement “endosperm or almond from coffee fruits”. Please revise. We deleted the word ‘almond’ to avoid confusion. See L 701. L704: Exposition? Do you mean exposure? We change exposition to exposure, see L 714. Reviewer #2 Abstract needs to be rewritten. Please provide some results. An abstract can not be based only on definitions and literature review. We added two sentences to the Abstract incorporating values for demographic parameters and sensitivities observed for lab and field evaluations, see L 15 – 20 and L 25 -26. L 29 Add Coffea arabica L. (Gentianales: Rubiaceae) We added this information, see L 33. L34 Add (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) We added this information, see L 39 -40. L35 Add Coffee berry borer We added this see L 41 L37-38 Add Citation to “only fertilized females abandon the fruit in search of new fruits to infest” We cited the review from Vega et al. 2009, to support the statement that only fertilized females abandon the fruit in search of new fruits to infest, see L 45. Vega FE, Infante F, Castillo A, Jaramillo J (2009) The coffee berry borer, Hypothenemus hampei (Ferrari)(Coleoptera: Curculionidae): a short review, with recent findings and future research directions. Terrestrial Arthopod Reviews 2: 129-147. L39 change the word adults by females We change the word ‘adults’ to ‘females’, see L 46. L49 – Change Bb to B. bassiana (Do not use acronyms for scientific names) We change Bb to ‘B. bassiana’ in the entire document. L64 Include references from 18 and 21 We added other references to support this paragraph, now the references are from 21 – 25, the format for references required by the Journal put the references in that way. See L 101 L76 Need citation (Portilla, 1999). "Portilla, M. 1999. Desarrollo y evaluation de una dieta artificial para la cria de Hypothenemus hampei. Rev. Cenicafe. 50:24-38" We cited this reference, see L 114 L85 Change Coffee berry borers (CBBs) were with coffee berry borer was We made this change, see L 124 L 128 Delete the plural in CBBs and add the word stages We made this change, see L 169. L 145 Here are you referring to the females? Yes, here we are referring to the females that is the most stage affected by the fungus B. bassiana. We changed ‘CBBs’ to ‘adult females’, see L 177. L146, L175, L223, L261, L265, L266, L269, L283, L284, L287, L332, L339 Delete the plural from CBBs We deleted the plural from CBB all times that we are using this abbreviation to refer to the coffee berry borer, in some occasions we change the word CBB with females when we were refered to the females. We made these changes through the entire manuscript. L228 – 221 Focus on M&M. Leave definitions and literature review to introduction and discussion. Citation in M&M are used when procedures from somebody else's are used. We deleted all definitions from Materials and Methods. L221 Delete the abbreviation LTRE We deleted the abbreviation from the start of the sentence, see L 261. L225-230 Same. Focus in M&M We deleted all definitions from Materials and Methods. L271-275 Use these statements for discussion We moved this information to discussion. See L 659 – 666. L286 What means Fate? We changed ‘fate’ to ‘behavior’ to avoid confusion. See L 318 L300 Add ,CBB to the title of figure To be consistent, for all titles of figures and tables we added coffee berry borer (CBB, Hypothenemus hampei)’ see L 318, 333, 348, 365, 378, 389, 405, 419, 438, 451, 461 L306 Change CBBs for coffee berry borer females We made the change, see L338 L307 Add females after CBB We made the change, see L339 L316 Add ,CBB to the title of figure and L332 Delete the plural from CBBs and add coffee berry borer before CBB To be consistent, for all titles of figures and tables, we added ‘coffee berry borer (CBB, Hypothenemus hampei)’ see L 318, 333, 348, 365, 378, 389, 405, 419, 438, 451, 461 L339 Do not use plural. Check throughout the text We deleted the plural from CBB all times that we are using this abbreviation to refer to the coffee berry borer, in some occasions we change the word CBB with females when we were refered to the females. We made these changes through the entire manuscript. L346 Add lab conditions: Temperature and Relative Humidity to the title of the table 2 We added this information, see L 379 - 380. L 360 -366 There is anyway to know if there is any significant differences between these cohorts? The rm values seem very low compared with other studies using Cenibroca artificial diet and parchment coffee under lab conditions: 1) Portilla et al.2000, (Reproductive potential response to continuous rearing of Hypotnenemus hampei developed using Cenibroca artificial diet. Rev. Colom. Entomol. 26:99-105. 2) Portilla and Street 2006 (Nuevas Tecnicas de production masiva automatizada de Hypothenemus hampei sobre la dieta artificial Cenibroca modificada. Rev. Cenicafe. 57:37-50) and 2008 (Profduccion masiva automatizada de la broca del cafe y de sus parasotoides sobre dietas artificiales. Sist. Agroeco. Mod. Biomatematic. 1:9-16) 3) Portilla et al. 2014 (Life tables as tools of evaluation and quality control for arthropod mass production, pp. 241-275. In: J. Morales-Ramos [Ed.], Mass Production of Beneficial Organisms. Academic Press, New York. 742 pp) (Book Chapter) look the case study "Abridged Life tables for the CBB, Hypothenemus hampei, at different temperatures using an artificial diet". All these articles can be cited as a reference and improved the current discussion. We reviewed the references that the reviewer recommended. We added three paragraphs in the Discussion comparing the results from these studies with our results. We focused on the studies that reported demographic parameters for the CBB populations that were grown on the artificial diet Cenibroca. See L 590 – 616. L376 – 377 Keep the terminology uniform for all figures and tables if needed: We made the titles more uniform using the phrase the “Coffee berry borer (CBB, Hypothenemus hampei)” L450 Delete the sentence: Despite the importance of the CBB as pest of coffee and add It is well known the reproductive potential of the CBB on the Cenibroca artificial diet (Portilla, 1999, Portilla et al. 2000, Portilla and Streett 2008, and Portilla et al. 2014); however, only few studies have been conducted field experiments ..... We made this change, see L 478 – 480. L466 Delete the heading: “Biological control as control for CBB management” We made this change. L476 – 589 Go to the point. Your study is not related to natural enemies. This information can be reduced to one paragraph or two. We agree with the reviewer, we reduced the information on natural enemies, for example, the section from ants as important predators of larvae and pupae of the CBB was reduced from five to two paragraphs. However, we consider that information about use of natural enemies to reduce the survival of larvae, pupae and adult females is important, and the information in the paper is novel in this context. We did not reduce this to one or two paragraphs as the reviewer suggested, but from sixteen to eight paragraphs. L 591 Delete the heading: “Life table parameters” We deleted this heading. L592 I could not see in the table: the significant differences in life table parameters between populations reared in the lab vs. those from artificial infestations in the field. Please add that information. The reviewer was right: we did not perform a statistical analysis for the life table parameters calculated for CBB populations reared in the lab vs. those from artificial infestations in field. We rewrote this sentence and changed ‘significant differences’ to ‘higher values in demographic parameters. See L 568 – 570. L614 This is one of the most complete study in demographic parameters using naturally infestation. So far, only two rearing systems have been able to get over that value Portilla 1999 in parchment coffee (0.073) and in Cenibroca diet (0.074) Portilla 2000. This information could be included in your discussion to support your conclusion We added four paragraphs (see Lines 590 – 616) where we discussed only the studies which used the artificial diet Cenibroca, since they are the most directly comparable. We think that the studies where CBB was grown on parchment coffee are less relevant, and would increase the length of the Discussion. L 620 did you mean differed? No, we are using ‘similar’ to say that these values are almost equal, not different. L623 Delete the plural from CBBs We made this change in the entire manuscript. L624 include demographic data obtained in Cenbroca diet by other authors. We added this information, see Lines 590 - 616 L642 Definitely, temperature affect demographic values. Please see "Abridged Life tables for the CBB, Hypothenemus hampei, at different temperatures using an artificial diet" We added this information, see Lines 598 – 603 L 650 Delete the heading: “Comparissons between CBBs rearing in the lab vs. CBBs growing on the field” We deleted this heading. L 726 – 729 Based in this study, it is important to know the real effect of the natural enemies on the demographic values of the CBB. Caged and uncaged coffee trees should be the answer. We added this sentence: “to determine the impact of natural enemies on the demographic parameters of the CBB” at the end of the Conclusion. See L 740 – 743. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260499.r002
25 Oct 2021 Decision Letter - Patrizia Falabella, Editor PONE-D-21-18910R1Demography and perturbation analyses of the coffee berry borer Hypothenemus hampei (Coleoptera: Curculionidae): implications for managementPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Mariño, 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 09 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: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled '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: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Patrizia Falabella Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [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: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: (No Response) ******** 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: Yes 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: Methods, results, objectives were correctly analyzed and interpreted. Authors addressed all comments and suggestions. Reviewer #2: Review 2: Marino et al. L9: change to “entire life cycle occurs inside the fruit where it is well-protected.” L10: change to “would shed light on the population dynamics of this pest…” L20: change comma to semi-colon L21-22: change to “indicated that effective CBB management should consider multiple developmental stages;…” L48: change to “which cause internal fruit rot” L50: change to “because chemical and biological control measures are only effective during the short period of time when adult females are out searching for new fruits to infest.” L164-166: You need to include here that entomological sleeves were used to cover the experimental branches. L177: note in parentheses at first mention that Bb refers to B. bassiana L194-196: Move this up to start the paragraph at L177. L214: You need to include the information in the text here on why you used different evaluation periods for lab and field (50 vs. 56 days). Please include the information you put in your response to reviewers into the manuscript here. L530: indicating that?? farmers should use commercial formulations to manage CBB instead of relying on naturally occurring B. bassiana strains? This thought seems incomplete as written. L536: Why do you think the mortality by natural Bb was higher in the study reported by Wraight et al? Are the farms in PR considerably drier and hotter than farms in Hawaii where feral strains of Bb thrive? L552, 555, 559: change sanitization to sanitation L590-603: Here you should include the information from your response on why you used 25 C instead of 27 C. ****** 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/. 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Revision 2
8 Nov 2021 Author Response Dear Dr. Chenette: We have revised the manuscript PONE-D-21-18910R1following the suggestions of the one anonymous reviewer, also we carefully revised the references to adjust our manuscript for publication in PLOS ONE. We found the comments to be very useful and constructive, and we have incorporated most of them. The list of comments and our responses (in bold) follow below. In this revised version, we followed the suggestions made by the reviewer #2. We added two new paragraphs, one in the methods section and other in the discussion. The first was added to explain the difference in the time for evaluations between field and lab. The second was added to explain the reasons to growth the insects or CBB at 25 �C instead to 27 �C, that is the optimal temperature recommended to growth the CBB in artificial diets. The new paragraphs and/or modifications in the manuscript that we made in this revision are shown in red text. We appreciate the opportunity to resubmit this revised version of our manuscript and look forward to hearing from you. If we can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us. Sincerely, Yobana Andrea Mariño Cardenas Department of Biology University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras San Juan, PR 00931-3360 Reviewer #2. L9: change to “entire life cycle occurs inside the fruit where it is well-protected.” We made the change, see L9. L10: change to “would shed light on the population dynamics of this pest…” We made the change, see L10 -11. L20: change comma to semi-colon We made the change, see L20. L21-22: change to “indicated that effective CBB management should consider multiple developmental stages;…” We made the change, see L22. L48: change to “which cause internal fruit rot” We made the change, see L48. L50: change to “because chemical and biological control measures are only effective during the short period of time when adult females are out searching for new fruits to infest.” We made the change, see L50-51. L164-166: You need to include here that entomological sleeves were used to cover the experimental branches. We used plastic bags to cover the entire branch. We added a phrase to specify that plastic bags were used as entomological sleeves, see L 163-164. L177: note in parentheses at first mention that Bb refers to B. bassiana To be consistent we changed Bb to B. bassiana, as you recommended in the first revision, see L 181. L194-196: Move this up to start the paragraph at L177. We made the change, see L 177-179. L214: You need to include the information in the text here on why you used different evaluation periods for lab and field (50 vs. 56 days). Please include the information you put in your response to reviewers into the manuscript here. We added the information, see L 212 -216. L530: indicating that?? farmers should use commercial formulations to manage CBB instead of relying on naturally occurring B. bassiana strains? This thought seems incomplete as written. We added a sentence recommending the application of both commercial and local strains of B. bassiana to reduce the damage caused by the coffee berry borer, see L 532 – 533. L536: Why do you think the mortality by natural Bb was higher in the study reported by Wraight et al? Are the farms in PR considerably drier and hotter than farms in Hawaii where feral strains of Bb thrive? There are two possible explanations for the difference in the natural presence or mortality of the CBB caused by B. bassiana between Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The first, we agree with you, the differences in temperature and relative humidity could be affecting the presence and development of natural infections with Bb. Farms from Puerto Rico experienced hotter and dryer days; for example, in our sampling site at 434 m.a.s.l. the temperatures ranged from 13 to 34�C and the minimum relative humidity was 47.6%; these measures are from September to November. While in Hawaii, for this same interval of time in a site located at a similar altitude 427 m.a.s.l, the temperatures ranged from 18.9 to 29.8�C and the minimum relative humidity was 66.7%. Another reason could be that our sampling site was located at an experimental farm with similar management to a commercial Farm. Wraight et al, 2018 found that the natural presence of Bb was significantly less common in commercial farms than feral sites. Environmental data from Hawaii were taken from Hamilton et al. 2019. Coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) development across an elevational gradient on Hawai‘I Island: Applying laboratory degree-day predictions to natural field populations. PLOs ONE 14(7): e0218321. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218321. Wraight et al. 2018. Prevalence of naturally-occurring strains of Beauveria bassiana in populations of coffee berry borer Hypothenemus hampei on Hawai'i Island, with observations on coffee plant-H. hampei-B. bassiana interactions. J. Invertebr. Pathol. 156, 54–72. doi: 10.1016/j.jip.2018.07.008. L552, 555, 559: change sanitization to sanitation We made the change, see L 555, 558, 562. L590-603: Here you should include the information from your response on why you used 25 �C instead of 27 �C. We added the information, see L 606-608. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260499.r004
11 Nov 2021 Decision Letter - Patrizia Falabella, Editor Demography and perturbation analyses of the coffee berry borer Hypothenemus hampei (Coleoptera: Curculionidae): implications for management PONE-D-21-18910R2 Dear Dr. Marino, 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, Patrizia Falabella Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260499.r005
Formally Accepted
2 Dec 2021 Acceptance Letter - Patrizia Falabella, Editor PONE-D-21-18910R2 Demography and perturbation analyses of the coffee berry borer Hypothenemus hampei (Coleoptera: Curculionidae): implications for management Dear Dr. Mariño: 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 Prof. Patrizia Falabella Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260499.r006

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