PONE-D-22-19772Inoculation and colonization of entomopathogenic fungi, Cordyceps javanica and Purpureocillium lilacinum  in tomato plants, and their effect on seedlings growth, population, and adult emergence of whitefly, B. tabaci (Gennadius).PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Jamian,

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 Jan 19 2023 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,

Allah Bakhsh

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript:

“The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Nigeria for providing a Ph.D. scholarship and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) for the general support during the study.”

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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:

 “This study was funded by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (Grant no. 5540212; reference code FRGS/1/2019/WAB01/UPM/02/36). he funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”

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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: Partly

Reviewer #3: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: 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: No

Reviewer #3: 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 paper is not acceptable in present form. Title: Inoculation and Colonization of Entomopathogenic Fungi, 2 Cordyceps javanica and Purpureocillium lilacinum in 3 Tomato Plants, and their effect on Seedlings Growth, 4 Population, and adult Emergence of Whitefly, Bemisia 5 tabaci (Gennadius)

The authors should give full names of Cordyceps javanica e.g. should be written as when it appears fort he first time and in title e.g. Cordyceps javanica (wf GA17)

Purpureocillium lilacinum shold be written as Purpureocillium lilacinum (Thom) Luangsa-ard, Hou- braken, Hywel-Jones & Samson (2011) when it appears first time and in the title.

There is no problem about control treatments used in the experiment.

Thereafter, the two names could be written as C. javanica and P. lilacinum in the annotated text of the paper. There is need to give more information. The topic is very interesting. Therefore present abstract should be rewritten to give more details about the experiment.

The authors should give more information about the induced conclusions based on the experimental results.

Purpureocillium lilacinum should be written as

Keywords: All words shown in the title must not be shown in the keywords.

İs very long. It shooould be shortened

The authors should not use the language of first or second person. All paper should be written in the language of third person.

Reviewer #2: General comments

This is an interesting study of the endophytic colonization of tomato plants with two of the less studied species of entomopathogenic fungi. Fungal inoculation was performed by treating the seeds with conidia suspensions. The subsequently inoculated seeds were allowed to germinate and various aspects of the plants were then studies: colonization of different parts of the plants from day 15 to day 60 post inoculation; plant development: seedling height/length, number of leaves, fresh and dry weight of roots, shoots and leaves. Furthermore, the authors also looked at some aspects of the interaction of EFP colonized plants with an important tomato pest, B. tabaci. In that case the authors looked at mortality of B. tabaci adults placed on the plants and an adult emergence test, which I could not understand at all.

The results showed the highly positive effects of both fungal isolates on plant development (which has been shown many times before for other EPF endophytes), however, the increased leaf number data is really odd.

The colonization of different parts of the plants was variable, with the highest % in leaves, followed by stems and a low level of colonization in roots. The peak colonization was seen at 30 days, falling rapidly at 60 days for leaves. The pattern for stem colonization was different to that of leaves, with the highest levels at 15 days, dropping off at 30 days.

Importantly, the authors used confocal microscopy to look at plant colonization. However, they give little attention to these results and put the images in the supporting material. In fact, the data for microscopy needs explaining as it is rather confusing, but maybe it is worth exploring in more detail as very few endophyte studies have used this technique.

The data for insect-plant interactions is also very confusing, with very little explanation of the M&M or results.

I have made some corrections to the PDF file, but the English needs a general overhaul.

Specific comments

Modify the title as very confusing!

See attached file.

Reviewer #3: The hypothesis of the work is wonderful. Eventhough, some monor corrections/typos needs to be corrected. However, it is not clear that how the auther has conducted the mortality experiments? How the experiment was conducted ? the the adults were relased and observed? simultaneously how the emergence observation were recorded. This methodology part need to be described well so as to further understand the esults and conclusion.

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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: Yes: The paper should be written in the language of third person. moreover following information is also needed

Title: Inoculation and Colonization of Entomopathogenic Fungi, 2 Cordyceps javanica and Purpureocillium lilacinum in 3 Tomato Plants, and their effect on Seedlings Growth, 4 Population, and adult Emergence of Whitefly, Bemisia 5 tabaci (Gennadius)

The authors should give full names of Cordyceps javanica e.g. should be written as when it appears fort he first time and in title e.g. Cordyceps javanica (wf GA17)

Purpureocillium lilacinum shold be written as Purpureocillium lilacinum (Thom) Luangsa-ard, Hou- braken, Hywel-Jones & Samson (2011) when it appears first time and in the title.

There is no problem about control treatments used in the experiment.

Thereafter, the two names could be written as C. javanica and P. lilacinum in the annotated text of the paper. There is need to give more information in abstract about the experiment. The topic is very interesting. Therefore present abstract should be rewritten to give more details about the experiment.

The authors should give more information about the induced conclusions based on the experimental results.

Purpureocillium lilacinum should be written as

Keywords: All words shown in the title must not be shown in the keywords to avoid duplication of key words. the title is very long. It should be shortened.

The authors should not use the language of first or second person. All paper should be written in the language of third person.

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes: Satish Kumar Sain

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[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: PONE-D-22-19772_reviewer r1.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: Supporting information _Plos one.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-22-19772_sks.pdf

PONE-D-22-19772R1Inoculation and colonization of the entomopathogenic fungi, Isaria javanica and Purpureocillium lilacinum, in tomato plants, and their effect on seedling growth, mortality and adult emergence of  Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius)PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Jamian,

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 Mar 27 2023 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,

Allah Bakhsh

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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)

Reviewer #3: 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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: N/A

**********

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

Reviewer #3: 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: No

Reviewer #3: 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 have carefully read and evaluated the paper. I found and recommend that the paper should be accepted and published.

Reviewer #2: It is somewhat tiring to re-review a manuscript where the authors haven’t taken into consideration your request to at least improve the English language beyond the corrections I marked in the manuscript. I have made some more corrections but many phrases are poorly constructed and the authors obviously did not ask for any help from a native speaker who understands the area. The description of the adult emergence experiment is still poor and the terminology for the adult survival experiment is also incorrect (population reduction: would be in the field but in a greenhouse, it is mortality or survival).

Reviewer #3: The name of the EPF is still Isaria javanica in place of Cordyceps javanica which is the latest name. I do not understand why this big mistake has happened in the revised MS

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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: Yes: the review is done and the paper is evaluated by myself

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes: Satish Kumar Sain

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[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: PONE-D-22-19772_R1_reviewer extra comments.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-22-19772_R1_reviewer (1).pdf

PONE-D-22-19772R2Inoculation and colonization of the entomopathogenic fungi, Isaria javanica and Purpureocillium lilacinum, in tomato plants, and their effect on seedling growth, mortality and adult emergence of  Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius)PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Jamian,

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 Jun 04 2023 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,

Allah Bakhsh

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.

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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: (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 #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

**********

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: I have corrected your manuscript yet again. I guess it is ok now but please stop using the term population for a group of insects in a cage or pot.

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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

**********

[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: PONE-D-22-19772_R2_reviewer really last chance! 04 03 23.pdf

Inoculation and colonization of the entomopathogenic fungi, Isaria javanica and Purpureocillium lilacinum, in tomato plants, and their effect on seedling growth, mortality and adult emergence of  Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius)

PONE-D-22-19772R3

Dear Dr. Jamian,

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,

Allah Bakhsh

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: