Mixed-species flock sizes and compositions influence flock members’ success in three field experiments with novel feeders

Todd M. Freeberg; Colton B. Adams; Charles A. Price; Monica Papeş

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0301270

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 28, 2023
31 Jan 2024 Decision Letter - Esin Ebru Onbaşılar, Editor Transfer Alert This paper was transferred from another journal. As a result, its full editorial history (including decision letters, peer reviews and author responses) may not be present. PONE-D-23-39771Mixed-species flock sizes and compositions influence flock members’ success in three field experiments with novel feedersPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Freeberg, 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. You should edit your article according to the opinions of the referees and upload it to the system. Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 15 2024 11:59PM. 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Kind regards, Esin Ebru Onbaşılar Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. 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. Note from Emily Chenette, Editor in Chief of PLOS ONE, and Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Director of Open Research Solutions at PLOS: Did you know that depositing data in a repository is associated with up to a 25% citation advantage (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230416)? If you’ve not already done so, consider depositing your raw data in a repository to ensure your work is read, appreciated and cited by the largest possible audience. You’ll also earn an Accessible Data icon on your published paper if you deposit your data in any participating repository (https://plos.org/open-science/open-data/#accessible-data). 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: "Funding that supported this work was obtained from the Department of Psychology and the College of Arts & Sciences of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville." Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 4. Please provide a complete Data Availability Statement in the submission form, ensuring you include all necessary access information or a reason for why you are unable to make your data freely accessible. If your research concerns only data provided within your submission, please write "All data are in the manuscript and/or supporting information files" as your Data Availability Statement. 5. We note that you have referenced (Freeberg, unpublished data) on page 6, which has currently not yet been accepted for publication. Please remove this from your References and amend this to state in the body of your manuscript: (ie “Bewick et al. [Unpublished]”) as detailed online in our guide for authors http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-reference-style 6. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. 7. 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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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 ****** 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 ****** 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 a very tightly written article on a rigorously designed set of experiments that advances and improves upon, and is consistent with, earlier work. A broad audience will appreciate this paper because of its implications for understanding how social group structure/diversity influences problem solving by higher vertebrates (including humans). I only have a few suggestions for improvement. (1) at line 54 (or before) it would be valuable to cite a new study of bird problem-solving by J-N Audet et al. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adh3428 - this paper shows that TUTI, WBNU and the close kin of CACH (BCCH) rank at the top of all birds in terms of problem-solving ability. It particularly underscores hypothesis 1 and 2 and helps explain why TUTI rely mostly on other tuti (as they rank highest of all). (2) Line 92 - a better study than crabs to cite here would be Grade and Sieving 2016 (https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0113) or other similar/recent bird studies. (3) Lines 436-440 - This portion of this paragraph would benefit from addition of well-known insights concerning animals reliance on cover when in the presence of explicit predation risks. The point being made is that it seems surprising that in this feeding study birds were not sensitive to the availability of cover when they were in a study that imposed explicit predation risks at feeders. But their results do not surprise me at all - when animals perceive an explicit threat, cover becomes extremely important if it is available (Steve Lima's works) and overall risk-taking declines (lots of papers - this one should lead you to the best sources to discuss via seeing who cites it more recently (Huang et al. 2011; https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arr212). Given the absence of explicit risks here, these birds' familiarity with their local (habitual) feeder sites would soften their caution in approaching when they don't detect a threat - neither noises nor vegetation configurations they are used to on a daily basis should influence them overly much when they are in groups. Basically, it is not a surprising result, but rather explicable. (4) Line 464 suggests we need to know more about cross-species information sharing - but there is a very large literature on it these days (heterospecific social information). Surely this could be less of a question and more of a conclusion concerning the results making sense - given the high importance of heterospecific social information in the lives of both flocking and non-flocking birds. Overall - a very cool study with implications for human social behavior and problem solving in diverse groups. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Kathryn Sieving ******** [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301270.r001
Revision 1
7 Mar 2024 Author Response Dear Dr. Onbaşılar: We thank you and the reviewers for helpful comments on our original submission. We have revised the manuscript based upon those comments and questions raised. Below is the entire text of your decision letter related to a revised manuscript. Following each point, we outline changes we made in the text to address the concern and indicate where those changes can be found by line number in the clean copy uploaded. If we can provide additional information, please let me know! Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. 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 Done! 2. Note from Emily Chenette, Editor in Chief of PLOS ONE, and Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Director of Open Research Solutions at PLOS: Did you know that depositing data in a repository is associated with up to a 25% citation advantage (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230416)? If you’ve not already done so, consider depositing your raw data in a repository to ensure your work is read, appreciated and cited by the largest possible audience. You’ll also earn an Accessible Data icon on your published paper if you deposit your data in any participating repository (https://plos.org/open-science/open-data/#accessible-data). We will have our data tables for the three experiments available at the PLoS ONE website for our study as supplemental online material. 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: "Funding that supported this work was obtained from the Department of Psychology and the College of Arts & Sciences of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville." Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Done. 4. Please provide a complete Data Availability Statement in the submission form, ensuring you include all necessary access information or a reason for why you are unable to make your data freely accessible. If your research concerns only data provided within your submission, please write "All data are in the manuscript and/or supporting information files" as your Data Availability Statement. Done. 5. We note that you have referenced (Freeberg, unpublished data) on page 6, which has currently not yet been accepted for publication. Please remove this from your References and amend this to state in the body of your manuscript: (ie “Bewick et al. [Unpublished]”) as detailed online in our guide for authors http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-reference-style We deleted this problematic sentence since it was not really needed and since we ended up finding that the diverse seed mix did in fact attract more total species to the feeders in these experiments (data reported in original results sections). 6. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. Done. 7. 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. Done. [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 ________________________________________ 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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 ________________________________________ 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 ________________________________________ 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 a very tightly written article on a rigorously designed set of experiments that advances and improves upon, and is consistent with, earlier work. A broad audience will appreciate this paper because of its implications for understanding how social group structure/diversity influences problem solving by higher vertebrates (including humans). I only have a few suggestions for improvement. (1) at line 54 (or before) it would be valuable to cite a new study of bird problem-solving by J-N Audet et al. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adh3428 - this paper shows that TUTI, WBNU and the close kin of CACH (BCCH) rank at the top of all birds in terms of problem-solving ability. It particularly underscores hypothesis 1 and 2 and helps explain why TUTI rely mostly on other tuti (as they rank highest of all). Thank you for the helpful suggestion – text added and reference cited in lines 56-60 and also in the discussion section in lines 486-489. (2) Line 92 - a better study than crabs to cite here would be Grade and Sieving 2016 (https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0113) or other similar/recent bird studies. We kept the hermit crab study as it involved acoustic noise but a visual stimulus and so could not be masking. We did add the Grade & Sieving (2016) study here – should have done that in the first place! Change in lines 98-99. (3) Lines 436-440 - This portion of this paragraph would benefit from addition of well-known insights concerning animals reliance on cover when in the presence of explicit predation risks. The point being made is that it seems surprising that in this feeding study birds were not sensitive to the availability of cover when they were in a study that imposed explicit predation risks at feeders. But their results do not surprise me at all - when animals perceive an explicit threat, cover becomes extremely important if it is available (Steve Lima's works) and overall risk-taking declines (lots of papers - this one should lead you to the best sources to discuss via seeing who cites it more recently (Huang et al. 2011; https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arr212). Given the absence of explicit risks here, these birds' familiarity with their local (habitual) feeder sites would soften their caution in approaching when they don't detect a threat - neither noises nor vegetation configurations they are used to on a daily basis should influence them overly much when they are in groups. Basically, it is not a surprising result, but rather explicable. We added text in lines 442-444 to address this important point and added two classic Lima references here. (4) Line 464 suggests we need to know more about cross-species information sharing - but there is a very large literature on it these days (heterospecific social information). Surely this could be less of a question and more of a conclusion concerning the results making sense - given the high importance of heterospecific social information in the lives of both flocking and non-flocking birds. Wording changed in this section to minimize the ‘question’ framing in the original manuscript – see lines 471-479. Overall - a very cool study with implications for human social behavior and problem solving in diverse groups. ________________________________________ 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Kathryn Sieving ________________________________________ [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301270.r002
14 Mar 2024 Decision Letter - Esin Ebru Onbaşılar, Editor Mixed-species flock sizes and compositions influence flock members’ success in three field experiments with novel feeders PONE-D-23-39771R1 Dear Dr. Freeberg, 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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, 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, Esin Ebru Onbaşılar Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301270.r003
Formally Accepted
24 Mar 2024 Acceptance Letter - Esin Ebru Onbaşılar, Editor PONE-D-23-39771R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Freeberg, 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. Esin Ebru Onbaşılar Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301270.r004

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