-->PONE-D-25-61238-->-->Multi-analysis of the 2021 mouse plague economic impact in New South Wales, Australia: Quantifying cost, policy variables, and efficient control options-->-->PLOS One

Dear Dr. Okello,

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Academic Editor

PLOS One

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5. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure:

The study was funded by the Department of Regional NSW “Research and monitoring

program to support more effective management of mice in NSW” with support from

CSIRO Health & Biosecurity.

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The authors acknowledge the NSW community for participating in the study and providing the data that underpinned this research. The authors acknowledge NSW Department of Primary Industries and the Grains Research & Development Corporation for their guidance and support. We also thank the online research provider for assisting in data collection, Dr. Loechel Barton for evaluating the questionnaire, and various community groups and research facilitators for distributing the survey link.

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The study was funded by the Department of Regional NSW “Research and monitoring

program to support more effective management of mice in NSW” with support from

CSIRO Health & Biosecurity.

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Additional Editor Comments:

Dear authors,

Thank you for resubmitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. Reviewers have recommended reconsideration of the draft following minor revisions. Please, consider the following during revision.

1. The current title is repetitive. A strong title usually answers one MAIN QUESTION, and rarely three. That is:

(a) ‘Economic impact’ already implies costs

(b) ‘Quantifying cost’ restates that same idea

(c) The ‘policy variables’ and ‘control options’ to my understanding relates to intervention and/or management.

Two non-repetitive alternative titles I would suggest are:

A multi-dimensional assessment of the 2021 mouse plague in New South Wales, Australia: Economic impacts and policy responses

Economic impacts and control strategies of the 2021 mouse plague in New South Wales, Australia

2. Please format the intext citations and references to the journal style.

3. I have added some comments and suggestions in the attached MS file which could improve manuscript clarity.

[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

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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.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.-->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.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: Well thought out and systematic analysis on the economic impact of mouse plague with findings, potential limitations clearly aritculated and appropriate implications for policy and practice outlined. A pleasure to read -- congratulations!

Reviewer #2: The manuscript titled ‘Multi-analysis of the 2021 mouse plague economic impact in New South Wales, Australia: Quantifying cost, policy variables, and efficient control options’ is interesting and need of the hour as it focuses on the agrarian impact of the 2021 mouse plague. It is disturbing to note that even after being severely impacted by the mouse plague, farmers themselves had to bear 67.10% of the total cost of loss. This result forms a valuable insight, seeking planned interventions from the policy front.

1. Authors are advised to revise the figures and graphs, especially figure. 3, as figure texts are not legible.

2. Please mention how all the farmers including cereals, pulses, vegetables, livestock etc are equally impacted by the mouse plague? sampling gave equal weightage to all farmers alike? Is it the ground reality .

3. Kindly mention in the discussion section, why farmers were restricting/ limiting mouse control options as only the chemical used by crop farmers to reduce crop yield losses, and have they found it to be counterproductive or any negative impacts of it health of the produce or farmers.

4. grammatical/ typo errors have to be corrected.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Dhanya PunnoliDhanya PunnoliDhanya PunnoliDhanya Punnoli

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Multi analysis of the 2021 mouse plague in NSW Australia AE.docx

A multi-dimensional assessment of the 2021 mouse plague in New South Wales, Australia: Economic impacts and policy responses

PONE-D-25-61238R1

Dear Dr. Okello,

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Kind regards,

Timothy Omara

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: