PONE-D-23-12190Morphometric Differentiation of Three Chicken Ecotypes of Ethiopia Using Multivariate AnalysisPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Markos,

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.

==============================

Dear Dr., Shishay Markos

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.

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we have decided that your manuscript needs Minor Revision.

Kind regards,

Prof. Lamiaa Mostafa Radwan, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Reviewer1

What is the standard to use almost 1:1 ratio of male and female (146 male and 164 females) chicken in your study

*You already have fixed the chickens in to their perspective agro-ecologies; so, why you need to conduct cluster analysis?

*I do not think some traits to be included as discriminating traits; for example wattle length and earlobe length in stepwise selection of traits (Table 5).

*Some inconsistencies…. Please use either” local” or “indigenous” for the chicken ecotypes you used for the study. My recommendation is to say “indigenous” rather than saying “local” along the manuscript

Reviewer 2

The article Morphometric Differentiation of Three Chicken Ecotypes of Ethiopia Using Multivariate Analysis is of interest. The authors have measured 21 morphometric traits of 770 chickens from three agro-ecologies of Tigray. Then Multivariate analysis was done and they found that among different traits earlobe length, Wingspan, skull length, and shank length were the most important traits for discriminating among female chicken ecotypes and wingspan, neck length, earlobe length, spur length, body length, and shank length were the most important discriminatory traits among male chicken ecotypes.

I think that the following areas should be dealt with in revision of this paper:

1. Introduction: Ethiopia is thought to have the largest livestock population…………………million beehives. The reference for that data is of 2016. Please include the data from recent references.

2. ‘Poor understanding of the production system and absence of comprehensive breeding strategies Efforts to boost the performance……..’ write the sentence properly

3. ‘Baseline information on…………………….utilization and improvements’. Split the sentence and make simple sentences for easy understanding.

4. ‘Rosario et al. have stated that the processesinvolved in the regulation of morphological traits in chickens are too complex to explain only in the univariate analysis as associated traits are biologically correlated owing to the pleiotropic effect of genes and loci linkages’. Split the sentence and make simple sentences for easy understanding.

5. ‘Multivariate statistical techniques are suitable approaches to analyzing……’ replace ‘to’ with ‘for’

6. ‘Thus, this study was designed to assess the genetic diversity and differentiation of the three local ecotypes of the western zone of the Tigray regional state of Ethiopia by using multivariate analysis and considering morphometric traits’. In this study only some morphometric traits were measured so how the genetic diversity was estimated in the study?

7. The materials and methods section needs more detail. This is especially important in the light of strong efforts on the part of the scientific community to improve replicability.

8. The Results section needs clarification and tighter organization.

9. The discussion section needs to be tightened up with respect to writing. It is overly long and quite speculative.

10 Conclusion section is also lengthy reduce the section and keep only the salient findings.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 08 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:

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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,

Lamiaa Mostafa Radwan, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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

"The authors are grateful to the Humera Agricultural Research Centre of the Tigray Agricultural Research Institute for funding the project with grant number 2130207. Our deepest appreciation and heartfelt thanks go to those individuals, including all sample Kebele administrations, farmers (chicken owners), Kafta Humera, Welkait, and Tsegede wereda agricultural offices, experts, and development agents that were involved directly and indirectly in the execution of the project."

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. 

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: 

"Funding: The author: Shishay Markos received funding through grant number: 2130207 from Humera Agricultural Research Centre of the Tigray Agricultural Research Institute 

 (https://www.asti.cgiar.org/ethiopia/directory/tigray-agricultural-research-institute-tari). 

 The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or

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8. 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. 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

**********

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: 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

Reviewer #2: No

**********

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: *What is the standard to use almost 1:1 ratio of male and female (146 male and 164 females) chicken in your study

*You already have fixed the chickens in to their perspective agro-ecologies; so, why you need to conduct cluster analysis?

*I do not think some traits to be included as discriminating traits; for example wattle length and earlobe length in stepwise selection of traits (Table 5).

*Some inconsistencies…. Please use either” local” or “indigenous” for the chicken ecotypes you used for the study. My recommendation is to say “indigenous” rather than saying “local” along the manuscript

Reviewer #2: The article Morphometric Differentiation of Three Chicken Ecotypes of Ethiopia Using Multivariate Analysis is of interest. The authors have measured 21 morphometric traits of 770 chickens from three agro-ecologies of Tigray. Then Multivariate analysis was done and they found that among different traits earlobe length, Wingspan, skull length, and shank length were the most important traits for discriminating among female chicken ecotypes and wingspan, neck length, earlobe length, spur length, body length, and shank length were the most important discriminatory traits among male chicken ecotypes.

I think that the following areas should be dealt with in revision of this paper:

1. Introduction: Ethiopia is thought to have the largest livestock population…………………million beehives. The reference for that data is of 2016. Please include the data from recent references.

2. ‘Poor understanding of the production system and absence of comprehensive breeding strategies Efforts to boost the performance……..’ write the sentence properly

3. ‘Baseline information on…………………….utilization and improvements’. Split the sentence and make simple sentences for easy understanding.

4. ‘Rosario et al. have stated that the processesinvolved in the regulation of morphological traits in chickens are too complex to explain only in the univariate analysis as associated traits are biologically correlated owing to the pleiotropic effect of genes and loci linkages’. Split the sentence and make simple sentences for easy understanding.

5. ‘Multivariate statistical techniques are suitable approaches to analyzing……’ replace ‘to’ with ‘for’

6. ‘Thus, this study was designed to assess the genetic diversity and differentiation of the three local ecotypes of the western zone of the Tigray regional state of Ethiopia by using multivariate analysis and considering morphometric traits’. In this study only some morphometric traits were measured so how the genetic diversity was estimated in the study?

7. The materials and methods section needs more detail. This is especially important in the light of strong efforts on the part of the scientific community to improve replicability.

8. The Results section needs clarification and tighter organization.

9. The discussion section needs to be tightened up with respect to writing. It is overly long and quite speculative.

10 Conclusion section is also lengthy reduce the section and keep only the salient findings.

**********

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.

PONE-D-23-12190R1Morphometric Differentiation of Three Chicken Ecotypes of Ethiopia Using Multivariate AnalysisPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Markos,

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.

==============================

Dear Dr., Shishay Markos, MSc

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we have decided that your manuscript needs Minor Revision.

Kind regards,

Comment Editor

The study provides valuable scientific information on biometrical measurements of chicken.

However, the manuscript needs to make some important modifications

1. Need a linguistic reformulation of the English language I recommend sending it to the authorities editing language
2. The difference of ages affects the measured data, so the effect of age must be included in the statistical model used to analyze the data

Prof. Lamiaa Mostafa Radwan, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Reviewer1

I have satisfied;

But for an other time while working such kind of works, it is better to balance the number of male and female animals following the guideline for phenotypic characterization of animals

Reviewer2

The study presents interesting morphometric insights on the three chicken ecotypes of Ethiopia using multivariate analysis. However, there are certain queries which need to be properly addressed. Moreover, English language needs to be thoroughly edited and improved. Use of unscientific words and unnecessarily long sentences has to be avoided and the overall content needs to be made more concise and clear

Methods

• Sampling technique: 6 months old or older chicken seems to be a vague criteria especially in the light of the fact that inclusion of older chickens may influence the individual trait measurements and may hide the true picture of the traits in the three ecotypes. Age should be considered as a separate factor for more accuracy in results

• Selection of farmers based on possession of 3 or more chickens: Three numbers of chickens is too less to provide the accurate description of morphometric traits and hence, characterize a population

• Please describe the visible appearance of the chickens ecotypes

• The same temperature in the study area of both Weynadega (midland) and Dega (highland) seems confusing as different ecological regions should have different temperatures and other weather conditions

• Population size for different ecotypes is less so as to warrant enough accuracy

Results

• PCA plots discriminating the three ecotype populations would have greatly helped in easier interpretation. This will also help to check for overlaps in different populations for further clarity

• PCA and step wise discriminant analysis provided enough clarity regarding the discrimination of the populations and the most important traits for discriminating the three populations. Was there some special reason as to why Canonical discriminant analysis was done?

• 7 PCs for discriminating female chicken ecotypes does not seems to make much sense…Comment

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 02 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,

Lamiaa Mostafa Radwan, Ph.D.

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.

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Dr., Shishay Markos, MSc

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we have decided that your manuscript needs Minor Revision.

Kind regards,

Comment Editor

The study provides valuable scientific information on biometrical measurements of chicken.

However, the manuscript needs to make some important modifications

1- Need a linguistic reformulation of the English language I recommend sending it to the authorities editing language

2- The difference of ages affects the measured data, so the effect of age must be included in the statistical model used to analyze the data

Prof. Lamiaa Mostafa Radwan, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Reviewer1

I have satisfied;

But for an other time while working such kind of works, it is better to balance the number of male and female animals following the guideline for phenotypic characterization of animals

Reviewer2

The study presents interesting morphometric insights on the three chicken ecotypes of Ethiopia using multivariate analysis. However, there are certain queries which need to be properly addressed. Moreover, English language needs to be thoroughly edited and improved. Use of unscientific words and unnecessarily long sentences has to be avoided and the overall content needs to be made more concise and clear

Methods

• Sampling technique: 6 months old or older chicken seems to be a vague criteria especially in the light of the fact that inclusion of older chickens may influence the individual trait measurements and may hide the true picture of the traits in the three ecotypes. Age should be considered as a separate factor for more accuracy in results

• Selection of farmers based on possession of 3 or more chickens: Three numbers of chickens is too less to provide the accurate description of morphometric traits and hence, characterize a population

• Please describe the visible appearance of the chickens ecotypes

• The same temperature in the study area of both Weynadega (midland) and Dega (highland) seems confusing as different ecological regions should have different temperatures and other weather conditions

• Population size for different ecotypes is less so as to warrant enough accuracy

Results

• PCA plots discriminating the three ecotype populations would have greatly helped in easier interpretation. This will also help to check for overlaps in different populations for further clarity

• PCA and step wise discriminant analysis provided enough clarity regarding the discrimination of the populations and the most important traits for discriminating the three populations. Was there some special reason as to why Canonical discriminant analysis was done?

• 7 PCs for discriminating female chicken ecotypes does not seems to make much sense…Comment

[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 #3: (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 #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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 #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 #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 satisfied;

But for an other time while working such kind of works, it is better to balance the number of male and female animals following the guideline for phenotypic characterization of animals

Reviewer #3: The study presents interesting morphometric insights on the three chicken ecotypes of Ethiopia using multivariate analysis. However, there are certain queries which need to be properly addressed. Moreover, English language needs to be thoroughly edited and improved. Use of unscientific words and unnecessarily long sentences has to be avoided and the overall content needs to be made more concise and clear

Methods

• Sampling technique: 6 months old or older chicken seems to be a vague criteria especially in the light of the fact that inclusion of older chickens may influence the individual trait measurements and may hide the true picture of the traits in the three ecotypes. Age should be considered as a separate factor for more accuracy in results

• Selection of farmers based on possession of 3 or more chickens: Three numbers of chickens is too less to provide the accurate description of morphometric traits and hence, characterize a population

• Please describe the visible appearance of the chickens ecotypes

• The same temperature in the study area of both Weynadega (midland) and Dega (highland) seems confusing as different ecological regions should have different temperatures and other weather conditions

• Population size for different ecotypes is less so as to warrant enough accuracy

Results

• PCA plots discriminating the three ecotype populations would have greatly helped in easier interpretation. This will also help to check for overlaps in different populations for further clarity

• PCA and step wise discriminant analysis provided enough clarity regarding the discrimination of the populations and the most important traits for discriminating the three populations. Was there some special reason as to why Canonical discriminant analysis was done?

• 7 PCs for discriminating female chicken ecotypes does not seems to make much sense…Comment

**********

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 #3: 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.

PONE-D-23-12190R2Morphometric Differentiation of Three Chicken Ecotypes of Ethiopia Using Multivariate AnalysisPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Markos,

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.

==============================

Dear Dr., Shishay Markos, MSc

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we have decided that your manuscript needs Minor Revision.

Kind regards,

Prof. Lamiaa Mostafa Radwan, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Editor Comments:

1- The conclusion section needs to be refined before publication because there are many repeats with the results section.

2- English language of this paper needs checking.

Reviewer1

The article entitled” Morphometric Differentiation of Three Chicken Ecotypes of Ethiopia Using Multivariate Analysis” has scientific merit and useful information. The authors have addressed the queries raised by me during the Review process. The article may be accepted for publication in PLOS one

.

Reviewer2

The conclusion section need to be refined before publication, because there are many repeats with the results section

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 02 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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Lamiaa Mostafa Radwan, Ph.D.

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.

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Dr., Shishay Markos, MSc

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we have decided that your manuscript needs Minor Revision.

Kind regards,

Prof. Lamiaa Mostafa Radwan, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Editor Comments:

1- The conclusion section needs to be refined before publication because there are many repeats with the results section.

2- English language of this paper needs checking.

Reviewer1

The article entitled” Morphometric Differentiation of Three Chicken Ecotypes of Ethiopia Using Multivariate Analysis” has scientific merit and useful information. The authors have addressed the queries raised by me during the Review process. The article may be accepted for publication in PLOS one

.

Reviewer2

The conclusion section need to be refined before publication, because there are many repeats with the results section

[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 #3: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #4: 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 #3: Partly

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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 #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: 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 #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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 #3: The article entitled” Morphometric Differentiation of Three Chicken Ecotypes of Ethiopia Using Multivariate Analysis” has scientific merit and useful information. The authors have addressed the queries raised by me during the Review process. The article may be accepted for publication in PLOS one

(U.Rajkumar)

Principal Scientist & Head

Poultry Genetics & Breeding

Reviewer #4: The conclusion section need to be refined before publication, because there are many repeats with the results section.

**********

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 #3: No

Reviewer #4: 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: comments R2.docx

PONE-D-23-12190R3Morphometric Differentiation of Three Chicken Ecotypes of Ethiopia Using Multivariate AnalysisPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Markos,

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 18 2024 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,

Miquel Vall-llosera Camps

Senior Editor

PLOS ONE

on behalf of

Lamiaa Mostafa Radwan, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Request from the Editorial Staff:

During our final internal checks on this submission, we noticed that this manuscript is very closely related to the following papers, of which you are an author:

Morpho-biometric characterization of indigenous chicken ecotypes in North-western Ethiopia", published in PLOS ONE (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286299)

As outlined in our criteria if related work has been published elsewhere, authors must describe its relation to the submitted work (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/criteria-for-publication#loc-2). For more information about our policy on related manuscripts please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/ethical-publishing-practice#loc-submission-and-publication-of-related-studies.

Before we proceed further with your PLOS ONE submission, we ask that you make reference of pone.0286299 in your manuscript and contextualise the study relative this previous work. Please clarify the differences in the research questions addressed and the data sets used in these related manuscripts, explain how the work described in your PLOS ONE submission advances on that described in this related paper.

We sincerely apologise that we did not notice this issue sooner in the review process, but hope you understand the reason for this decision. We are monitoring your submission closely and please rest assured that we are doing everything we can to avoid any further delays. 

Thank you for your time and attention.

[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 #4: 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 #4: Yes

********** 

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

Reviewer #4: 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 #4: 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 #4: 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 #4: Modify all complete and receivable, Dual publication, research ethics or publication ethics are all in accordance with requirements and regulations

********** 

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 #4: 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.

PONE-D-23-12190R4Morphometric Differentiation of Three Chicken Ecotypes of Ethiopia Using Multivariate AnalysisPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Markos,

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.

==============================

Thank you to the author for the response to clarify the differences between the previous and current manuscript, but your responses are only for the auditors

This was not clear in the introduction and discussed results of the manuscript. Please clarify the differences between the previous and current research in the text of writing the manuscript, 

please write different color marks highlighted in the paragraph and all that is added in this is learned on the highlighter to facilitate its review

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 18 2024 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,

Lamiaa Mostafa Radwan, Ph.D.

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.

Additional Editor Comments:

Thank you to the author for the response to clarify the differences between the previous and current manuscript, but your responses are only for the auditors

This was not clear in the introduction and discussed results of the manuscript. Please clarify the differences between the previous and current research in the text of writing the manuscript,

please write different color marks highlighted in the paragraph and all that is added in this is learned on the highlighter to facilitate its review

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

[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.

Morphometric Differentiation of Three Chicken Ecotypes of Ethiopia Using Multivariate Analysis

PONE-D-23-12190R5

Dear Dr. Markos,

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,

Lamiaa Mostafa Radwan, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Accept

Reviewers' comments: