Dear Dr. Moore,

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 have been lucky enough to receive two sets of reviews on your manuscript. Both reviewers highlight that this is a strong manuscript with considerable application to the field of behavioural science. Both reviewers note that revisions are required, but the required revisions are relatively small overall. 

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Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 23 2025 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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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

James Edward Brereton, MSc

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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4. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Table 1 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table.

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Additional Editor Comments:

Reviewer #1:

Reviewer #2:

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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?

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Line 62, not everyone would know what "Old World" means

Line 83, the sentence starts with a connecting word, consider changing this

Line 132, is it still enrichment if it is standard? If it is standard then is it enriching?

Line 136, is this light cycle to mimic their habitat?

Line 272, tense changes from past to present "are"

Reviewer #2: Dear Authors,

First, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to review such an interesting piece of work. Congratulations on developing a study that is not only highly relevant for improving the management of the species but also valuable in demonstrating the suitability of using machine learning to support the collection of behavioral data.

In my view, the manuscript requires only minor adjustments to further clarify the information for readers. Below, I outline my suggestions:

Title: While the current title is interesting, I wonder whether it might be appropriate to modify it slightly. The main objective of the study appears to be the evaluation of alopecia in the animals, relating it to behavior and environmental enrichment. The comparison of methods (human vs. machine) is certainly present, but it does not seem to be the primary focus. It may therefore be worth considering a title that more directly reflects this emphasis. For example, I suggest the following:

Refining Animal Care Through Technology: Addressing Alopecia in Jaculus jaculus via Validated Computer Vision Analysis.

Line 126: What does the acronym AAALAC stand for?

Line 238: Is Equation 1 correct? It currently appears only with question marks.

Line 248: Why was the opaque divider chosen as environmental enrichment? Was it intended to block the animals’ view of conspecifics? Were the animals kept side by side with visual contact at all times, or was this arrangement only applied to the test animals?

General comment on the text: While the overall structure of the manuscript is coherent, some sentences seem more appropriate in different sections. For instance, the sentences in lines 286–288, 298–301, and 320 have more of a Discussion character, whereas the sentence in lines 289–291 appears more suited to the Methods section.

Lines 314–315: It might be clearer to rephrase as: “…and presence of grooming (statistics)….”

Table 1: I could not find where this table is first cited in the text (possibly around line 352).

Line 415: spp. should not be italicised.

Figure 4: Were there no individual differences in the expression of behaviours in these analyses? Some individuals seem to show markedly lower RM and FB values compared to others.

Figure 5: The ICC values appear to be inverted here—should they not be 0.93 ± 0.075 and 0.90 ± 0.069? In this figure, is it correct to interpret that the behaviours JU and GR showed low accuracy in recording?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Refining animal care through technology: addressing alopecia in Jaculus jaculus with validated computer vision analysis

PONE-D-25-40567R1

Dear Dr. Moore,

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,

James Edward Brereton, MSc

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: