PONE-D-23-43746Crop Damage by Nonhuman Primates: Quantifying the Keys Parameters of Crop-Raiding events on the Livelihoods of Smallholders in an Agriculture- Forest Mosaic Landscape, Wolaita Zone, Southern EthiopiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Deneke,

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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Sharon E Kessler

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

I have now received two reviews of your paper. Reviewer 1 has pointed out some substantial revisions that need to be made before the paper can be considered for publication. Therefore, I would invite you to engage in major revisions. Please address all of the reviewers comments. In particular, please provide a more substantial grounding for your study in the context of the literature in your introduction and discussion. Please also consider the more comprehensive approaches to your data that reviewer 1 has suggested. I look forward to reading your revised manuscript.

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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: No

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: No

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: No

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: Title: Please make your title concise and precise; it is now unnecessarily long and complex

I would suggest to be modified as: ‘Patterns of Primates’ Crop Raiding and the impacts on incomes of Smallholders across Mosaic agricultural Landscape of Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia’

Introduction: this section is too shallow, lacks strong evidence from bodies of literature. Instead, it seems the description of the study area. Hence, I would recommend major revisions by scanning more literature review. For example, you can refer: Lemessa, D., Hylander, K., & Hambäck, P. (2013). Composition of crops and land-use types in relation to crop raiding pattern at different distances from forests. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 167, 71–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2012.12.014

Materials and methods

Study area

Please include the ecosystem type and farming systems in the description of the study areas. Refer to this doc regarding the farming system: Amede, T., Auricht, C., Boffa, J.-M., Dixon, J., Mallawaarachchi, T., Rukuni, M., & Teklewold-Deneke, T. (2015). The Evolving Farming and Pastoral Landscapes in Ethiopia: A Farming System Framework for Investment Planning and Priority Setting. September.

Line 146-148, how can famers identify the age categories of the crop raiders? It is not clear!

Experimental setup: you need to show experimental setup by drawing schematic sketch, it is not entirely clear from the texts you wrote??

Data analysis

This is entirely less clear and has a lot of shortfalls. The study was undertaken across a landscape and hence, it is expected that there random factors besides the data considered as fixed factors. The data analysis undertaken did not take into account this issue. This means that such dataset can strongly be analyzed using mixed models such as LMM or GLMM. Now, simple non-parametric statistical tests were used and even are not clearly described how and for what type of response variables they used. For example, Ch-square for what kind of frequency distribution? Mann Whitney test for what type of data? and F-test?

Line 188-190, For the analysis of primate assaults on maize within both preventive and non-preventive maize fields at different seasons and crop phenology, we utilized R-Software [13]. But, what package and function were used is not mentioned.

Moreover, there are statistical tools mentioned in the result but not in data analysis section. Why the authors used two statistical software is also not clear? Hence, I would strongly suggest to run the analysis based on these comments and reciprocally present the results.

Results

I was a bit confused how the authors described the crop damage from maize stems and cobs.

- Is it stems/cob or cobs/stems?

Discussion section

Since some results may be changed after the revision of the analysis, at this stage it is not sensible to comment on this section.

Reviewer #2: Comments and suggestions to the Authors

This paper is good and can be strengthened for your audience to benefit even more from your study. I made some minor comments and suggestions. The authors should use the separate file to correct the suggested comments. In addition, there are some comments and suggestions that require clarification.

Title:

1. The title is very long. It should be shorter than the present and to the point accordingly.

2. The title is similar with the work titled “Crop Damage by Primates: Quantifying the Key Parameters of Crop-Raiding Events” in western Uganda and published in PLOS ONE although it is in different countries. Would you modify your title?

Abstract:

1. Line -13- “This study aims to assess primates foraging behavior” Is assessing primates foraging behavior was one of the objective of the paper? If yes where is the method and result of the objective?

2. An abstract should show slightly how to collect the data of the work. However, this manuscript didn’t show how to collect the data.

Introduction

1. The authors described as the study area contains endemic animal and plant species. Would you please list some of them?

2. The gap of the study should describe at the introduction part. However, I didn’t see a research gap in your introduction section.

3. Line-39- 47- It will be better if this part moved to the description of the study area section.

4. Lines -55- Please remove the method from the introduction part.

5. The introduction part is very short. It didn’t highlight what is done and what is the gap. I recommend writing strong introduction.

Study area

1. Line-68- remove the word “see”

Experimental setup

1. What do 25 fields mean? Would you clarify in detail?

2. Line -122- “Data collection was carried out by farmers who had received training from researchers”. I doubt about this. How farmers can collect data? The work is on crop damage by Nonhuman Primates. If yes how farmers can collect actual data. I strongly believe that the data collected by farmers might be biased. Why didn’t participate field experts rather than the farmers.

3. Line-127-128- The data collectors (farmers) received incentives. However, this may makes them biased on the data.

4. I have doubt on the data collection method (Farmer observation and reports). Thus, the authors should give scientific evidence on the doubt why they use farmers as data collectors by giving incentives.

Data analysis

Result

1. Line-213- remove the word “as detailed in”

2. The result of the manuscript is very shallow. Please try to make it strong result.

Discussion

1. Line -349- 354- this is a repetition of the result. Please don’t repeat your result in the discussion section. Instead try to discuss your result (the meaning and application of your result).

2. Your discussion is very broad and general. I suggest you to give emphasis on the interpretation of your result and comparing your result with recent publications similar to your work.

Conclusion

1. Would you please add the application of your work in the introduction section?

2. Make it strong conclusion based on your findings.

General Comments

1. Grammar and structure of sentences should be revised for better improvement.

I hope this helps to make the paper better.

Best wishes.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Debissa Lemessa

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

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Submitted filename: Comments_DL.docx

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Submitted filename: Comments PLOS ONE.docx

PONE-D-23-43746R1Crop Damage by Nonhuman Primates: Quantifying the Keys Parameters of Crop-Raiding events on the Livelihoods of Smallholders in an Agriculture- Forest Mosaic Landscape, Wolaita Zone, Southern EthiopiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Deneke,

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. Both reviewers have re-reviewed your manuscript and have indicated that they are not satisfied with the revisions. Therefore, I invite you to revise again and to address all of their concerns. In particular, please include a more thorough literature review in your introduction, please address the statistical concerns of reviewer 1 (I would encourage you to use the recommended analysis), and please discuss the methodological concerns of reviewer 2 (points 2 & 3, which the reviewer refers to as 'serious.')  I look forward to reading the revised manuscript.

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 16 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.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Sharon E Kessler

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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: No

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: No

**********

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: 1. ‘it is easier to make visualizations of the results, e.g. plotting box plot using SPSS instead of R’, but you have used R to run lm analysis which is even more difficult when compared to making box plot graph using e.g., boxplot<-boxplot(damage~ locations). This does not convince me and I strongly suggest using R instead of SPSS to produce high quality graph.

2. ‘We chose a multiple regression model over LMM or GLMM models because it is suitable for analyzing spatio-temporal data of the dependent variable (maize rate of damage)’ over the LMM. However, you have random factors which, due to the variations among sites/seasons, unnecessarily inflate the impacts of noises in the model and subsequently the results. To intuitively analyze the data and thereby enhance the novelty of your study, I still insist to run the analysis using LMM which is the extension of lm (that you have used now) to take into account both fixed factors (that you measured or recorded) and the random factors (sites/seasons) that you cannot do this with ordinary linear model.

Reviewer #2: Comments and suggestions to the Authors

Although most of the previous comments and suggestions are corrected, there are still some comments and queries that require improvements and clarification.

Title

1. Modified according the comments

Abstract:

1. I didn’t see the highlight how to collect the data of the work in the abstract section. Yes, it is described in detail in the MS. However, abstract should highlight the method of data collection.

Introduction

1. Corrected and improved.

Study area

1. Line 107, According to reference [25], delete the word reference

2. Line 13 and 111, 10x10 meters, correct as 10 x10 meters

Farmer observation and reports

1. Farmer? Only one farmer or farmers?

2. Line -141- “The data collection was conducted by twenty five farmers who had received training from researchers…..” Still, this concern is serious. How farmers can collect data? Although they completed secondary school or above, they are already farmers. Thus, how farmers can collect actual data. This may lead to biasness. Why didn’t participate field experts rather than the farmers?

3. Furthermore, the data the farmers received incentives. However, this may makes them biased on the data.

4. Dear authors, you didn’t give a scientific response on the above two serious issues (2 and 3).

Results

1. In the results in the testing of significance level, there is writing error. For instance, line 288: (F=292.5, df=11, p < .001, see Figure 5). Here, it should rewrite as follows: (F = 292.5, df = 11, p < .001, see Figure 5). Your writing style should consistency throughout the MS.

2. There is inconsistency in the writing style of the MS. For example, Line 288 (F=292.5, df=11, p < .001, see Figure 5) and line 299 (χ² = 58.62, d.f. = 10, P < 0.05). Here, look the degree of freedom (df). In the first degree of freedom written as df while in the second degree of freedom written as d.f. You have to correct such inconsistencies throughout the manuscript.

General Comments

1. There is inconsistency in the writing style in the MS (as described as the results section in the above).

2. Furthermore, I have observed other inconsistencies in the MS. For instance, line 77 (Fig. 1), line 118 (Figure 2), line 124 (see figure 3), line 280 (Fig. 5), line 285 (as illustrated in Fig. 6), line 295 (as illustrated in Fig 7), line 303 (see Fig 8) …… Please correct these and other inconsistencies throughout the manuscript.

Accordingly, the MS requires serious editing once again before go to the production for publication.

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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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Submitted filename: Comment.docx

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Submitted filename: Comments PLOS ONE R1.docx

PONE-D-23-43746R2Patterns of Primates Crop Raiding and the impacts on incomes of Smallholders across Mosaic agricultural Landscape of Wolaita Zone, Southern EthiopiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Deneke,

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 Sep 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.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Miquel Vall-llosera Camps

Senior Staff Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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.

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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: (No Response)

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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: No

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

**********

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: Thank you once again for inviting me to review further this manuscript. It is clear that the study is interesting and has some novelty. However, I think the authors need strong support for the statistical analysis part. With my previous comments, I was trying to encourage them to analyze their data in a robust way using LMM with the inclusion of random factors using R program instead of SPSS. The authors are stating that they used SPSS to do so and they even took out the R now from their data analysis section with this version. Still how they used the different statistical tools for the analysis is crude and not explicitly described. If the authors are willing to improve their manuscript by including these comments, I think the manuscript may be accepted for the publication without further review process.

Reviewer #2: You corrected all the comments and suggestions that I gave you in the second round. Hence, I suggest to the editor that it be published in the journal.

Good luck.

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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: Debissa Lemessa

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.

PONE-D-23-43746R3Patterns of Primates Crop Raiding and the impacts on incomes of Smallholders across Mosaic agricultural Landscape of Wolaita Zone, Southern EthiopiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Deneke,

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.

==============================

The first reviewer recommended the article for acceptance and the second one had concerns about the quality of what is presented as the background to the study within the introduction section. I agree with this and urge that the authors make a solid case for where there study fits within the body of knowledge existing on human-primate conflicts within the framework of crop raiding, not only in Ethiopia or Africa but actually throughout the tropical region. In short, a more thorough literature review, preferably with citations of research conducted within the past 1-6 years.

The third reviewer had even more serious concerns regarding the analytical and conceptual framework of the study, specifically feeling that some analyses were largely still unsound, many of them repetitive; that there was little justification for the large array of analytical tools employed by the authors. For instance could the authors try and reduce the number of statistical tools or more clearly explain how the various analyses do not duplicate each other? In addition, state what data model distribution  and link functions were applied to the LMMs

In addition:

• Please ensure that towards the end of the abstract, you indicate the significant potential application of your findings
• To the declaration section on ethical statement, please add/confirm explicitly that: “In addition, there was no direct interaction between field personnel and the subjects (the primates) in such a way as to harm the animals or interfere with their freedom in nature such as by way of capture or trapping”
• Several subsections within Results and Discussion sections could be consolidated and merged so as to yield a maximum of no more than 4 subsections in each of them. This will make for easier reading
• Please try and pay much more close attention to the quality or writing in terms of language, grammar, spelling and logical flow within paragraphs and the interconnections amongst paragraphs and sections. Seek the services of a professional English language Editor
• The formatting of the reference list and figure as well as table captions and legends must strictly follow the guidelines of PLOSONE. If not, this alone will lead to rejection of the paper, which would be unfortunate, given the considerable time and effort the authors already invested in revising the manuscript so far
• Consolidate and minimize the number of illustrations: Aim for a maximum of 5 tables and 5 figures, and provide information regarding the extra illustrations within the text or leave them out altogether
• The revised manuscript should not bear any markings or color-highlighted sections
• Take note that the reviewers have uploaded PDFs of the manuscript in which they have indicated additional specific comments, and that you need to look at these and address all such issues in your revision, or provide sufficient rebuttals to the ones which you may be in disagreement
• Make sure that all the co-authors have thoroughly read and helped with the revision, and approved the final version before it is resubmitted

Carefully addressing these minor/major issues, as well as all the review comments will go a long way in making the paper more acceptable to the readership of PLOSONE

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 26 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.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Nickson E. Otieno

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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.

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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 #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: 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 #3: Partly

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: No

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: No

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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 #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: 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 #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: 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 #3: While the manuscript is generally well-written, there are a few concerns. The introduction requires structural revisions for improved clarity and coherence. It should begin with a broader discussion of global human-wildlife conflict, particularly focusing on primates' effects on agriculture, to better establish the study's relevance. Additionally, the sections on the Sodo Zuriya and Damot Gale areas need to be integrated more effectively, highlighting their ecological significance and the importance of these regions for studying human-wildlife conflict. The introduction should also better articulate the problem statement, linking it to existing literature and identifying the research gap this study addresses. Methodologies such as camera traps and community-based studies should be reserved for the methods section. At the same time, the introduction should succinctly outline the study's objectives and emphasize the importance of the findings for conservation and conflict management. Improving the flow and ensuring a logical progression from general to specific information will enhance the introduction's impact. Another concern is the annotation of statistical results and terminology, which needs to be addressed for greater accuracy and clarity.

In conclusion, the study provides valuable insights into primates' foraging behaviour and maize damage across 25 small maize fields, both protected and non-protected. Overall, I was inclined to agree with the idea that this research is crucial for understanding the impacts on maize crops and developing strategies to mitigate wildlife conflict and support the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the region. Additional comments are detailed in the attached PDF. Should these be addressed, I recommend the manuscript be accepted for publication.

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: This manuscript describes the results of a study of patterns of crop foraging by primate species and the impacts on the incomes of smallholders across the mosaic agricultural Landscape of Wolaita Zone.in Ethiopia. I recognize the hard work it has taken to conduct the fieldwork presented in this paper and the time authors have put into analyzing their data and writing the manuscript. However, the manuscript has several conceptual and analytical problems. The introduction lacks conceptual ideas. It should be seriously rewritten on the current Knowledge of crop foraging by wild animals worldwide. Therefore, the paper needs major revision to be accepted by PlOS ONE. It should be written based on the guidelines of PlOS ONE.

I included all my comments within the PDF file. The authors should use this file to correct those comments. I stated some crucial comments here.

1. The authors use a lot of statistical packages. I advise the authors to consult a statistician about their data for better analysis.

2. Some of the statistical values are not correct and clear too.

3. Why did the authors use two different kinds of statistical software? SPSS and R

4. Once the authors abbreviate phrases, they should use that abbreviation afterward. It is unnecessary to abbreviate here and there.

5. The author should say crop foraging instead of crop raiding as well as forage instead of raid throughout the paper

6. The authors should use a similar common name for baboons; olive baboons instead of anubis baboons

7. The method lacks clarity

8. I am so unhappy with the citation system. The authors seem no experience or they are careless. For example, a study conducted by, according to a paper by, as stated in reference

9. There are many tables and figures. Some of them are unnecessary. Please trim your study as short and understandable as possible.

**********

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 #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: 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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-23-43746__Reviewer_Summary_NSP_Rev_1.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-23-43746_reviewer_NSP_Rev 1.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: Comments to the authors and editors.docx

Attachment

Submitted filename: Comments to the authors-PDF-PONE-D-23-43746_R3.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-23-43746_R3-PLOS ONE.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewer report_PONE.docx

PONE-D-23-43746R4Patterns of Primates Crop Foraging and the impacts on incomes of Smallholders across Mosaic Agricultural Landscape of Wolaita Zone, Southern EthiopiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Deneke,

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 Nov 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.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Nickson E. Otieno

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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.

Additional Editor Comments:

Abstract

• Needs a brief statement of the study’s objectives, and a brief outline of the general methods used to collect information. Please ensure that in the first part of the abstract, there is something (1-2 sentences)outlining how the study was conducted, before mentioning the findings

Introduction

• Needs to be expanded with more literature review of recent studies on crop damage by primates in the tropics generally but in Africa in particular (especially maize). Ensure you mention how your study fills in any gap left by such studies i.e, what is new about your findings. This was clearly emphasized by Reviewer #1 but the authors have not addressed it. Many studies related to this have been conducted in many parts of the tropics. The introduction part needs to be at least 2 pages long
• Needs a statement towards the end, of hypotheses to justify linear modeling. Mention at least one hypothesis and what you expected to find out from the sudy
• Remove the statement in which insects are mentioned as crop raiders. This study is bout primates

Tables and figures

• Remove vertical lines in tables
• Within tables, center all texts and numbers within columns and rows except column titles
• Standardize font types and size in all tables according to journal guidelines
• Table legends and figure captions must contain enough details to be able to stand alone
• If abbreviations are used in figure axes such as in Fig 5, they must be fully defined in the captions text

In general

• The language is still below par, and needs professional editing for English. (There are very many affordable but effective ones available ones which can be contacted online to complete editing within 48 hours). Therefore, in the revised edition of the MS, a professional English proof reading certificate must be submitted.
• Only the first word of each title or subtitle should be capitalized
• For decimal numbers, standardize  and round off to a maximum of 3 decimal points
• Throughout the manuscript, adopt a third-party  stance in presentation of the write-up  e’g “the study was conducted …” instead of “We conducted the study …”;  and “The experimental set up … “ instead of “Our experimental set up …”
• Do not rush to resubmit the revised manuscript, if these issues are nit addressed. You have until te end of October 2024.

In summary, this is a good opportunity for the authors to rescue the paper after the previous efforts at revision, but still, if any of the above concerns and issues are not addressed in full, the revised paper will be rejected outright.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

[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.

Patterns of Primates Crop Foraging and the impacts on incomes of Smallholders across Mosaic Agricultural Landscape of Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia

PONE-D-23-43746R5

Dear Dr. Deneke,

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,

Nickson E. Otieno

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Before the article can be considered for acceptance towards publication, the authors must  either address these few additional outstanding concerns that the reviewers had, and which the authors did not mention in their response document to the reviewers’ comments or in the revised article. Or provide good solid reasons as to why they think those issues are not worthy of being addressed/ Please answer them point by point (i.e from point 1 to point 4, NOT A ONE GENERAL PARAGRAPH ANSWER):

1. The authors compared the extent of crop damage by primate species in protected and non-protected maize fields. These two types of fields should have been found at an equal distance from the forest edge of the primate habitat. If they were found at different distances, how can you be sure to answer your research questions? I.e., Okay you can measure the extent of crop damage by considering distances. But to measure the extent of crop damage between protected and unprotected fields, the two types of crop fields should be located at equal distances from the forest edges.  
2. In all distances 50m, 100m, 200m, and 300m each protected fields method (wire mesh, human guardians, scarecrows, and thorny bushy) for maize fields should be available. If not your experiment did not identify the better protection method and provide mitigation measures. You can evaluate those protection methods.  
3. The authors set up 15 non-protected maize fields and 10 protected maize fields. Why did you set up different numbers of maize fields? You should set up equal numbers for both protected and non-protected maize fields.
4. Why did you guard the maize field only for seven days? Maize took at least three months to harvest?.

In addition,

Please strictly follow, adhere to and effect the following points in improving the structuring  and outlay of the article:

1. The article text must be double-spaced and use the same font type throughout. At the moment, this is not the case in your paper
2. Every page must have “continuous  line-numbering”, including pages with tables figures and supplementary material
3. Test must be formatted to leave a margin of at least 1.5 inches on both sides
4. Ensure that all co-authors, especially the one listed last (H. L.) read the manuscript and help with final corrections in language and structure before it is resubmitted to PLOS ONE. It appears they were not contacted by you in the last round of revision
5. In adherence to journal guidelines, Avoid capitalizing first letters of worlds in the titles and subtitles unless they are names of places of common names of animals
6. Remove all text in italics unless used for animal scientific names
7. Define GPS in full when fist mentioned. Do this for all other abbreviations in the manuscript
8. Avoid using italic font in the text except for animal scientific names of local-dialect words
9. Format the article to fit in the page and leave at least 1.5 inch margins. Some tables have been seen to be overlapping pages. Seek support from someone  experienced In document layout formatting
10. Tables must not have an vertical lines

Please look at the article, which has been attached for you, and which bears the specific comments from the editor (some of which overlap with the ones outlined above).

Reviewers' comments:

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Manuscript_EDIT.pdf