Standard deviation: Standardized bat monitoring techniques work better in some ecosystems

Danny Haelewaters; Morgan Hughes; José António Lemos Barão-Nóbrega; Kathy Slater; Thomas Edward Martin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0311553

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 8, 2024
9 Sep 2024 Decision Letter - Lyi Mingyang, Editor PONE-D-24-27876Standard deviation: standardized bat monitoring techniques work better in some ecosystemsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Haelewaters, 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 Oct 24 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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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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.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 Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 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: In the paper “Standard deviation: standardized bat monitoring techniques work better in some ecosystems” the authors completed mist-netting surveys for bats in two widely separated field sites, Calakmul Biosphere Reserve (CBR), a Mexican lowland tropical forest, and Krka National Park (KNP), a Mediterranean dry scrub forest in Croatia. This manuscript is well organized, and the drawn conclusions are coherent with the obtained results. Despite I have enjoyed reading your paper; I feel that it needs to be corrected by a native English speaker because I have seen a few grammatical errors. I hope to provide very useful suggestions to improve the overall clarity of your study as well as the quality of your analysis. I think that my suggestions look feasible to you, and I believe you will be able to address them. Thus, please take care to do a full revision of your manuscript according to all my comments. Improvements based on my comments will be crucial for acceptance. I have some concerns and suggestions for each aspect of the manuscript. Please see below: Lines 51 - 53: I think that you should add these important and recent references to support your sentence: “Assumptions regarding uniform performance of standardized survey methods may be problematic, given that variability in ecological and geographical factors offer challenges and present obstacles to standardized survey efficacy”. I would like to suggest: Fraissinet, M., et al., (2023). Responses of avian assemblages to spatiotemporal landscape dynamics in urban ecosystems. Landscape Ecology, 38(1), 293-305. Xie, B., et al., (2023). Evaluation, comparison, and unique features of ecological security in southwest China: A case study of Yunnan Province. Ecological Indicators, 153, 110453. Lines 65 - 66: I think that you should add these important and recent references to support your sentence: “determine demographic and breeding parameters of a sampled population, to obtain samples (DNA, chemical samples, fecal samples, ectoparasites)”. I would like to suggest: Del Vaglio, M. A., et al., (2011). Feeding habits of the Egyptian fruit bat Rousettus aegyptiacus on Cyprus island: a first assessment. Hystrix, 22(2) 2011: 281-289 Talbot, B., et al., (2017). Comparative analysis of landscape effects on spatial genetic structure of the big brown bat and one of its cimicid ectoparasites. Ecology and Evolution, 7(20), 8210-8219. Lines 70 – 81: Please, explain in detail your hypothesis and predictions. You need to expand this section if you would want to express exactly what you want to do. Lines 153 – 162: What is the software/tool/package used in your analysis? Lines 202 – 211: Please expand this part of the manuscript. Reviewer #2: The paper studied the efficacy of standardized and targeted mist-netting surveys of bats in two structurally dissimilar ecosystems. The writing of the paper is concise and well-structured, making the content easy to follow. The rationale for selecting mist-netting over other non-invasive or passive bat monitoring techniques provided in the introduction was greatly appreciated. Although mist-netting is a well-established method, providing additional details on standardized mist-netting techniques for bats or highlighting how standardized mist-netting differs from non-standardized one could enhance the reader's understanding. The readers could benefit from specific information on typical survey designs for standardized mist-netting, if such exist. Additionally, readers could benefit from in text references to existing standards, guidelines, or recommendations for mist-netting of bats, along with a comparison to your selected study design. This could provide valuable context and help in assessing the methodology used. The authors demonstrate an awareness of the study's limitations and have explicitly addressed them in the discussion. Overall, this is an engaging paper, supported by collected data from an extensive fieldwork. ****** 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: No ******** [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.0311553.r001
Revision 1
13 Sep 2024 Author Response Dear Dr Mingyang, Thank you for the timely review. We were very happy to see such positive feedback from both reviewers and made changes to our manuscript in accordance with their suggestions. Below, we outline how we responded to each comment. Reviewer #1: In the paper “Standard deviation: standardized bat monitoring techniques work better in some ecosystems” the authors completed mist-netting surveys for bats in two widely separated field sites, Calakmul Biosphere Reserve (CBR), a Mexican lowland tropical forest, and Krka National Park (KNP), a Mediterranean dry scrub forest in Croatia. This manuscript is well organized, and the drawn conclusions are coherent with the obtained results. Despite I have enjoyed reading your paper; I feel that it needs to be corrected by a native English speaker because I have seen a few grammatical errors. I hope to provide very useful suggestions to improve the overall clarity of your study as well as the quality of your analysis. I think that my suggestions look feasible to you, and I believe you will be able to address them. Thus, please take care to do a full revision of your manuscript according to all my comments. Improvements based on my comments will be crucial for acceptance. I have some concerns and suggestions for each aspect of the manuscript. Please see below: RESPONSE: We thank the reviewer for their positive feedback. The manuscript was written by two native English speakers. We also had it revised prior to submission by a third native English speaker, who is a professional English editor. While we are broadly happy with the quality of writing in the manuscript (see also Reviewer 2’s comments on the high writing quality), we have followed the reviewer’s advice and have carefully proof-checked the manuscript again. This has led to us making a few further grammatical corrections where appropriate (see, for example, minor edits in lines 142, 146-147, 199-200, and 244-245). Lines 51 - 53: I think that you should add these important and recent references to support your sentence: “Assumptions regarding uniform performance of standardized survey methods may be problematic, given that variability in ecological and geographical factors offer challenges and present obstacles to standardized survey efficacy”. I would like to suggest: Fraissinet, M., et al., (2023). Responses of avian assemblages to spatiotemporal landscape dynamics in urban ecosystems. Landscape Ecology, 38(1), 293-305. Xie, B., et al., (2023). Evaluation, comparison, and unique features of ecological security in southwest China: A case study of Yunnan Province. Ecological Indicators, 153, 110453. RESPONSE: Thank you. We added these references as suggested. Lines 65 - 66: I think that you should add these important and recent references to support your sentence: “determine demographic and breeding parameters of a sampled population, to obtain samples (DNA, chemical samples, fecal samples, ectoparasites)”. I would like to suggest: Del Vaglio, M. A., et al., (2011). Feeding habits of the Egyptian fruit bat Rousettus aegyptiacus on Cyprus island: a first assessment. Hystrix, 22(2) 2011: 281-289 Talbot, B., et al., (2017). Comparative analysis of landscape effects on spatial genetic structure of the big brown bat and one of its cimicid ectoparasites. Ecology and Evolution, 7(20), 8210-8219. RESPONSE: We were unable to find sufficient relevance for the first reference to be cited in our manuscript. However, we did cite the second suggested reference, as suggested by Reviewer #1. Lines 70 – 81: Please, explain in detail your hypothesis and predictions. You need to expand this section if you would want to express exactly what you want to do. RESPONSE: We added our two hypotheses, in lines 84-88: “We formulated two hypotheses: (1) standardized mist-netting is more effective for capturing bats in a landscape with greater heterogeneity and abundant features suitable for commuting (e.g., rivers, forest edges) than in a homogenous landscape; and (2) in homogenous landscapes, targeted surveys result in greater efficacy in capturing bats compared to standardized surveys.” We also refer back to these hypotheses in the discussion in lines 268-271: “In summary, for the reasons discussed above, our results closely matched the expectations laid out in our hypotheses; 1) that standardized mist-netting performed better in the (more heterogenous) habitats of CBR than in the (more homogenous) landscapes of KNP, and 2) that targeted surveys yielded better results than standardized surveys in the homogenous landscapes of KNP.” Lines 153 – 162: What is the software/tool/package used in your analysis? RESPONSE: We added this information, in lines 176-177: “All analyses were done in the R language and environment for statistical computing [42]. Figures were produced using ggplot() implemented in the R package ggplot2 [43].” Lines 202 – 211: Please expand this part of the manuscript. RESPONSE: We expanded this section by including more references and expanding the relevance of our study to similar patterns found in other taxa (i.e., birds). Reviewer #2: The paper studied the efficacy of standardized and targeted mist-netting surveys of bats in two structurally dissimilar ecosystems. The writing of the paper is concise and well-structured, making the content easy to follow. The rationale for selecting mist-netting over other non-invasive or passive bat monitoring techniques provided in the introduction was greatly appreciated. Although mist-netting is a well-established method, providing additional details on standardized mist-netting techniques for bats or highlighting how standardized mist-netting differs from non-standardized one could enhance the reader's understanding. The readers could benefit from specific information on typical survey designs for standardized mist-netting, if such exist. Additionally, readers could benefit from in text references to existing standards, guidelines, or recommendations for mist-netting of bats, along with a comparison to your selected study design. This could provide valuable context and help in assessing the methodology used. The authors demonstrate an awareness of the study's limitations and have explicitly addressed them in the discussion. Overall, this is an engaging paper, supported by collected data from an extensive fieldwork. RESPONSE: We appreciate these very positive comments from Reviewer #2. We have incorporated important references with regard to standardized mist-netting as suggested. We note that these references were already cited but we added some additional sentences to draw the attention to best practices and guidelines, in lines 74-77: “Best practices and guidelines for standardized mist-netting for bats are presented by Kunz and Kurta [23], Barlow [24], Walsh and Catto [19], Battersby [21], and Collins [20]. Survey effort for mist-netting has been explored in further detail by Weller and Lee [25] and Hughes and colleagues [26].” Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: response to reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311553.r002
23 Sep 2024 Decision Letter - Lyi Mingyang, Editor Standard deviation: standardized bat monitoring techniques work better in some ecosystems PONE-D-24-27876R1 Dear Dr. Haelewaters, 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 Editorial Manager® 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, Lyi Mingyang, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): I have read myself the new version of the manuscript and found it suitable for the publication in PlosOne. Best regards, LM Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311553.r003
Formally Accepted
26 Sep 2024 Acceptance Letter - Lyi Mingyang, Editor PONE-D-24-27876R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Haelewaters, 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 Professor Lyi Mingyang Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311553.r004

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