PONE-D-24-05136Community density patterns estimated by species distribution modeling: the case study of an insect virus interactionPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dupas,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

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: This is an interesting study demonstrating a methodological framework to study patterns of pathogen prevalence and host density. However, it requires much additional work before being acceptable for publication.

My main objection lies in the apparent “hybrid” nature of the study. Whereas the introduction is mostly about developing a new methodological approach applied to a particular case, the rest of the paper concerns the specifics of the system under study.

I would challenge the purportedly methodological nature of the paper. Developing a new approach would require (i) to test the method with simulated data to establish its efficiency and (ii) to compare its results with alternative methods to assess is performance. These steps have not been undertaken in the study.

My suggestion is that the authors focus in the analysis of their specific virus-insect system and indicate somewhere in the discussion that their approach might be valuable given the difficult applicability of other approaches.

Specific comments

Abstract 5.- It is not clearly shown what this results means biologically.

51. insert “on” between “relies” and “long”.

53-54. “Casuality is still not inferred…” It is not entirely clear what is meant here.

196. “precipitation being the most significant…” This can be misleading because p-values do not indicate of the size of the effect. A very low p-value suggests a clear difference but not necessarily a large one. So being “the most significant” is not particularly informative in terms of biology.

I could not find any captions for figures 1 and 2. Apparently that of S1 Fig. corresponds actually to Fig. 1, but then what is the S1 figure included in supplementary information? Likewise, S2_Fig.pdf is not referred to in the text and the S1 R script is identified as S2 in line 285.

Reviewer #2: From my point of view, the document is well structured and supported by the data presented. This can be considered an interesting contribution to a very little studied subject in the neotropical region and particularly in countries such as Ecuador.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Community density patterns estimated by species distribution modeling: the case study of an insect virus interaction

PONE-D-24-05136R1

Dear Dr. Dupas,

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,

Clement Ameh Yaro, Ph.D

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: This is the second version of a manuscript I previously reviewed. I agree with the new focus the authors have adopted and am satisfied with the revisions made in response to my feedback.

I only have a few minor editorial suggestions:

30. Capitalize “south and central america”.

56. For consistence, indicate the height above sea level for the Ecuadorian localities.

77-82. “M” is italicized in some instances but not in others.

100. Correct “¡ 1 km”.

109-111. Need to explain the terms in the formula: prodpathogen, Pestdesnity.

139. Delete “m” in “prevalencem”.

142. Better “explained the largest proportion of”.

161. Insert space “21]and”.

175. Correct “¿60º”

186. The period “.” is misplaced.

199. Insert “a” between “facilitating” and “meta-analytic”.

218-253. Ackowledgments are duplicated.

224. Capitalize “glm”

Reviewer #2: I have reviewed the document and have no additional comments, from the beginning I have considered it to be a well done job. In addition, I have read the responses to the comments of other reviewers and it seems to me that the changes proposed by the authors resolve the necessary elements and strengthen the final version of the document.

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No

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