PONE-D-23-28075Variability in body weight and morphology of Uganda’s indigenous goat breeds across agro-ecological zonesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Nantongo,

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ACADEMIC EDITOR: 

• The authors should provide current FAO statistics on the population of goats in the study area.
• Effect of sex and its interaction was not considered in the model despite sampling different sexes. There should be a concrete justification for this.
• There is a need to subject the manuscript to grammar check
• The queries of the two reviewers should also be adequately addressed.

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PLOS ONE

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“The research was funded by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) through a grant to Biosciences eastern and central Africa—International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI Hub) (Sida contribution no: 51050080) to Nantongo Ziwena as a PhD fellow under the Africa Biosciences Challenge Fund (ABCF) program. The ABCF Pro-gram is funded by the Australian Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) through the BecA-CSIRO partnership, the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).”

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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: No

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: Yes

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: he study was conducted in 10 different agroecological regions of Uganda to investigate the impact of environmental factors on the physical characteristics and live weight of domestic goat breeds. However, in the study, only the ages of the animals included in the experiment and the regions where they were raised were considered as environmental factors. Therefore, the purpose of the study should be aligned with the implemented applications. In this study, we conducted a basic identification study on a total of 1020 animals from 3 different breeds bred in Uganda. Considering the analyses carried out, it was deemed a significant shortcoming that the live weights of these breeds were not included as a covariate in the mathematical model used. On the other hand, the absence of specific statistics (such as mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, etc.) for races in the study makes it difficult to comprehend the level of variation. However, based on the values depicted in the charts presented in the article, it is evident that there is a significant variation among the breeds that were studied. It is important that the number of samples is not provided in the presented tables so that the reader can have a clearer understanding of the subject. The information provided in the conclusion of the article is purely informative. However, this section does not clearly state how the findings will be used as a foundation for future studies or how they will contribute to the current situation. Considering all the issues I mentioned above, the presented study should be revised statistically, and the conclusion section should be reorganized. The article was not considered worthy of publication in its current form for several reasons.

Reviewer #2: The paper discusses on data of morphometrics of different breeds of goats. The data is worthy of publication.

However, the presentation could be improved. Suggestions:

1. Figures 1, 2, and 3 . The pictures of the goat could be taken with not at an angle but on a straight view with roughly the same scale.. The pictures should be in Figures 1, 2 and 3 could be put on 1 page as Figures 1(a) (b) (c), in order to make identifying the goat breeds easier. No cropped image of the goat. The goat should be in full. Please improve the image of Fig 1 and Fig 2.

By putting the images side by side, the reader should be able to compare the goats visually.

2. Figure 4: The map and also the legend needs improving. (Blurred).

3. Figure 6: Where is the standard error /standard deviation for the graphs? Insert the SD/SE bars and add it to the caption of the Graph. Delete the word "A graph of"

4.Table 1 is cropped. Please improve.

5. Explain more about Table 4. and 3.3 Body size characteristics of goat breeds across age ranges, since there is significance among the breeds, and age range.

6. Is this the first report on Mubende, Kigezi, and Small East African goat breeds? Compare your data with other morphometric data of previous studies.

7. Please check the reference format.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Onur YILMAZ

Reviewer #2: No

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Variability in body weight and morphology of Uganda’s indigenous goat breeds across agro-ecological zones

PONE-D-23-28075R1

Dear Dr. Nantongo,

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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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,

Abdulmojeed Yakubu

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 #1: All comments have been addressed

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: The authors made all the corrections requested within the scope of referee criticism. Therefore, it is appropriate to publish the article in its current form.

Reviewer #2: Good fundamental data on indigenous Ugandan goat breeds. The cross-sectional survey was conducted in 323 households 24 from the ten zones, where 1020 goats composed of three breeds (Mubende, Kigezi, and Small

25 East African) were sampled and measured for body weight, linear body size, and age.

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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: ONUR YILMAZ

Reviewer #2: Yes: Dr Shahrizim Zulkifly

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