PONE-D-23-34044The microbiota of Amblyomma americanum reflects known westward expansionPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Short,

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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: The manuscript details original research on the spatial structuring of microbiota in female and male Amblyoma populations across expanded and historic ranges. The manuscript effectively uses proper English, addressing relevant questions and objectives to provide answers. I have pointed out two minor corrections that are highlighted in the text.

Reviewer #2: Overall, the manucript titled “The microbiota of Amblyomma americanum reflects known westward expansion” is an interesting study describing microbiota of Amblyomma americanum in some region of united states.

The manuscript should be revised by the authors in order to be published. I addressed some point below line by line.

The manuscript is definitely too long, thus I suggest shortening it by cutting some parts on the too detailed paragraphs (best of speech is the short and informative one (.

Title

The title is ambiguous and needs more clarification. What does the word (westward expansion) refer to?

Abstract

The abstract must involve the tick borne pathogens that determined by researchers

Introduction

Line 55: it is preferred to replace “driver” with -----motivation

Line 56: geographic range expansion---to-----geographic distribution

Line 73: You could have mentioned briefly the functional roles of the tick microbiota

Materials and Methods

Line 117: 189 A. americanum specimens collected at 24 localities, this number is too small. You can describe your limitation and difficulties to obtain more samples.

Line 148: Mention the active ingredient of bleach in parentheses.

Line 146: you are mentioned “we extracted genomic DNA from each individual tick” , This contradicts your statement “Ticks, randomly chosen, were surface”, so you must replace the second sentence with “all ticks sterilized with ……

Line 152: ATL----- Write the full name and abbreviation in parentheses

Line 157-176; line 293-303: I suggest making small table including gene, Primer type, Primer sequence, PCR product size (base pair), thermocycling conditions, References for each primer

Line 177: Bioinformatic analyses--- Authors should rephrase this section so that it is clear and concise

Results

Line 323, 324: must be written in discussion

Fig 2: it is preferred to be changed with good clear colors and resolution, so that the readers can recognize the details of the figure easily.

Fig. 3: the meaning of the abbreviated letters must be written on the figure as fig.4

Line 364: please write abbreviation in parentheses as example (W- region) or any other format to avoid the confusion with other words ---within whole manuscript

Discussion

Line 541; structuring—to ---structure

Line 587, 587; reformulate the sentence

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Idika kalu Idika

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-23-34044_reviewer v2.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: Author responce Amblyomma americanum.docx

The microbiota of Amblyomma americanum reflects known westward expansion

PONE-D-23-34044R1

Dear Dr. Short,

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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Kind regards,

Mai abuowarda

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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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 #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

**********

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 manuscript details original research on the spatial structuring of microbiota in female and male Amblyoma populations across expanded and historic ranges. The manuscript effectively uses proper English, addressing relevant questions and objectives to provide answers. I believe the manuscript is in good shape to be accepted for publication

Reviewer #2: All reviewer comments are addressed in revised manuscript xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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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: Idika Ik

Reviewer #2: No

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