Investigating hill sheep farmers and crofters’ experiences of blackloss in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland

Fiona McAuliffe; Ann McLaren; Neil Sargison; Franz Brülisauer; Andrew Kent; Davy McCracken

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0298255

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 23, 2023
29 Nov 2023 Decision Letter - Julio Cesar de Souza, Editor PONE-D-23-31486A survey of hill sheep farmer and crofter’s experiences of blackloss in the Highlands and Islands of ScotlandPLOS ONE Dear Dr. McAuliffe, 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 13 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. 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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: "This study was undertaken as part of a PhD studentship, funded by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) and NatureScot and registered at the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. It involves close collaboration between SRUC, The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, NatureScot and SRUC Veterinary Services." Please state what role the funders took in the study. 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It involves close collaboration between SRUC, The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, NatureScot and SRUC Veterinary Services." 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: "This study was undertaken as part of a PhD studentship, funded by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) and NatureScot and registered at the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. It involves close collaboration between SRUC, The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, NatureScot and SRUC Veterinary Services." 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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 Sir, considering the opinions of the reviewers for this paper, we ask you to consider the suggestions so that we can move forward with the publication. Best Regards, Julio Souza [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: General comment: Well written article, has viable information about topic of this manuscript. The abstract is covered this manuscript completely. It contains very long sentences. I suggest that it be rephrased in short sentences. Results: good and clear. I suggest that the authors indicate their findings in detail, especially the results of tables 1 and 4. Conclusion: Authors wrote the conclusion of their study in abbreviated. I suggest that they rewrite the conclusion in detail, based on the results of their study. References: excellent, clear and complete and important references. - Some references are old such as: 1963, 1964, 1967, 1971, 1986, 1987, 1990. I suggest replace it with modern references. Reviewer #2: The paper present a well planned and carried out survey with some interesting results that could be relevant for ameliorate the mortality rate of lambs in extensive productive system in Scotland. I only have found a sentence that have no meaning for me, and I recommend to be reword or explain in a different way and is in Lines 304 to 306: “A single respondent from Group 1 reported lamb counts for marking and weaning, with a loss of 1.3%. This is far below the reported estimated losses of 11-20% for Group 1 on a whole, and the >30% loss reported by this respondent, indicating that losses may be overestimated.” It is not clear for me if the same respondent of Group 1 reported lamb losses of 1.3 % and the same respondent reported more that 30% loss. This those do not make sense to me. ****** 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: Yes: Marta E. Alonso ******** [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.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298255.r001
Revision 1
9 Jan 2024 Author Response Reviewer 1: General comment: Well written article, has viable information about topic of this manuscript. Title of this manuscript is excellent. The abstract is covered this manuscript completely. It contains very long sentences. I suggest that it be rephrased in short sentences. The abstract has been edited to break sentences into shorter sentences to improve clarity. Introduction: readable, comprehensive, and covering the subject quite right. It is consist of an important references. Materials and methods: perfect. Results: good and clear. I suggest that the authors indicate their findings in detail, especially the results of tables 1 and 4. Further detail has been added when presenting the results from Tables 1 and 4. Discussion: excellent and clear. Conclusion: Authors wrote the conclusion of their study in abbreviated. I suggest that they rewrite the conclusion in detail, based on the results of their study. Further detail has been added to the conclusion section to reiterate the key findings and results of the study. References: excellent, clear and complete and important references. - Some references are old such as: 1963, 1964, 1967, 1971, 1986, 1987, 1990. I suggest replace it with modern references. Some additional modern references have been added (Fisher and Matthews, 2001). Others are seminal works are should be referenced. See below for explanations on each reference. Tables: excellent and clear. Figures: excellent and clear. Reviewer 2: The paper present a well planned and carried out survey with some interesting results that could be relevant for ameliorate the mortality rate of lambs in extensive productive system in Scotland. I only have found a sentence that have no meaning for me, and I recommend to be reword or explain in a different way and is in Lines 304 to 306: “A single respondent from Group 1 reported lamb counts for marking and weaning, with a loss of 1.3%. This is far below the reported estimated losses of 11-20% for Group 1 on a whole, and the >30% loss reported by this respondent, indicating that losses may be overestimated.” It is not clear for me if the same respondent of Group 1 reported lamb losses of 1.3 % and the same respondent reported more that 30% loss. This those do not make sense to me. This sentence has been reworded to improve clarity. From the lamb counts the study respondent returned we were able to calculate a loss of 1.3%, however the respondent themselves estimated their losses to be >30%. References: 5 Kaufman L, Rousseeuw PJ. Partitioning Around Medoids (Program PAM). In: Kaufman L, Rousseeuw PJ, editors. Finding Groups in Data: An Introduction to Cluster Analysis. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 1990. pp. 68–125. doi:10.1002/9780470316801 The is the seminal first paper to describe partitioning around medoids, which is the clustering method used in this study, and should therefore be reference. 6 MacQueen J. Classification and analysis of multivariate observations. Fifth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability. Los Angeles LA USA: University of California.; 1967. pp. 281–297. This is the seminal paper describing k-means clustering, an alternative clustering method, and should therefore be included in the references. 14 Gower JC. A General Coefficient of Similarity and Some of Its Properties. Int Biometric Soc. 1971;27: 857–871. doi:10.2307/2528823 This is the seminal work which described Gower’s distance matrix, which is what was used in the current analysis, and so this paper muct be referenced. 20 Hunter RF, Milner C. The behaviour of individual, related and groups of South Country Cheviot hill sheep. Anim Behav. 1963;11: 507–513. doi:10.1016/0003-3472(63)90270-7 21 Lawrence AB. Mother-daughter and peer relationships of Scottish hill sheep. Anim Behav. 1990;39: 481–486. doi:10.1016/S0003-3472(05)80412-9 The 1963 and 1990 papers descibe sheep home range behaviour in a Scottish context, relvant to the current study and will therefore be retained. Although they are older references they are accompanied by more modern references from 2001 and 2016. 22 Lockie JD. The breeding density of the golden eagle and fox in relation to food supply in Wester Ross, Scotland. Scottish Nat. 1964;71: 67-77. 23 Leitch AF. Report on eagle predation on lambs in the Glenelg area in 1986. 1986. 24 Matchett MR, O’Gara BW. Methods of controlling golden eagle depredation on domestic sheep in southwestern Montana. J Raptor Res. 1987;21: 85–94. We feel that these references, particularly Lockie (1964) and Leitch (1986) were very important as some of the earliest investigations into eagle depredation of lambs within a Scottish context. Matchett (1987) provides examples of eagle predation of lambs from Montana, USA, however as the sheep husbandry practices are similar to Scottish hill farming it provides a good comparison, and is worthy of inclusion. Several other modern references (2004, 2010, 2013, 2015, and 2021) with relation to eagle predation are also provided. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298255.r002
23 Jan 2024 Decision Letter - Julio Cesar de Souza, Editor A survey of hill sheep farmer and crofter’s experiences of blackloss in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland PONE-D-23-31486R1 Dear Dr. McAuliffe, 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, Julio Cesar de Souza, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Dear authors, thanks to adjust. The paper is accepted. Best regards Julio Souza Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298255.r003
Formally Accepted
18 Mar 2024 Acceptance Letter - Julio Cesar de Souza, Editor PONE-D-23-31486R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. McAuliffe, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Julio Cesar de Souza Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298255.r004

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