PONE-D-21-03950

Estimating the size of a breeding colony of northern elephant seals from a single census

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Condit,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. Firstly my apologies for the delay in the revision process, this was not through any fault of the manuscript. 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.

Reviewer 1 has raised a number of concerns that should be considered in your response to ensure the manuscript meets PLOS ONE's publication criteria. However, while Reviewer 1 feels that the lack of generalisabilitiy of your method is a concern and a barrier for publication, this is not one of PLOS ONE's publication criteria. I will leave it to you as to how you wish to respond to this particular point, however, perhaps a discussion point that highlights the value of your model for your study species over a more general and, likely, less precise approach.

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Andrew J. Hoskins

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: Partly

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: No

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: The authors have developed a methodology to estimate the annual number of breeding female northern elephant seals at seven study colonies. An impressive dataset has been collected and analysed to accomplish this goal. The premise is simple and the results are of value to the field of population ecology. However, the delivery is poor. The narrative is not flowing, not enough background information is provided, the language alternates been informal and formal speech, and there many misuses of the English language. Most importantly, the authors have made the paper single-species focused rather than using their study species as a model organism to develop a methodology that can be applied to other polygynous, capital breeding species. This is not within the scope of PLoS ONE.

I found it extremely frustrating that no line numbers were provided in the manuscript. Given that the manuscript could only be downloaded in PDF format, I could not add my own referencing system.

Please could the authors address all of my comments and questions in the manuscript as well as in their written response to the reviewer.

Please refer to the attached document for detailed comments.

Reviewer #2: I enjoyed reading the paper which makes a really nice contribution to assessing population numbers. Accurate long-term counts of animals is central to quantifying population status and trends and for this growing population this is especially useful. The paper is statistically sound as are the methods, The results are well supported and their interpretation and discussion appropriate. I especially like that there are simple correction factors that can be used and applied.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr Kyle J. Lloyd

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review (PONE-D-21-03950).pdf

Estimating population size when individuals are asynchronous: a model illustrated with northern elephant seal breeding colonies

PONE-D-21-03950R1

Dear Dr. Condit,

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,

Andrew J. Hoskins

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 #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 #2: Yes

**********

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

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 #2: Yes

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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 #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 #2: Thank-you for your thorough revsion, thisn is a useful paper and one that will be of interest to many of the PlosOne readers

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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 #2: No