-->PONE-D-26-03557-->-->From theory to practice: a case study on estimating the costs of improving animal welfare on Simmental alpine dairy farms-->-->PLOS One

Dear Dr. Zanon,

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.

Your manuscript has been evaluated by two independent experts in the field. As you will see from the attached reports, the reviewers have found your work interesting and relevant to the scope of our journal. However, they have also raised several concerns that must be addressed before the manuscript can be considered for publication.

While one reviewer has suggested minor changes, the second reviewer has identified more substantial issues that require a Major Revision.

In light of these evaluations, I am pleased to invite you to revise your manuscript and submit a point-by-point response to the reviewers' comments. Please note that the revised version will likely undergo a second round of review to ensure all concerns have been adequately addressed.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Yasin ALTAY, Ph. D.

Academic Editor

PLOS One

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ON Foods - Research and Innovation Network on Food and Nutrition Sustainability, Safety, and Security - Working ON Foods

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No

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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: Line 40 : In the keyword section, there is a term appeared "Dual-purpose breeds" but the manuscript rarely discusses the dual-purpose characteristic of Simmental. The whole paper focus is on dairy production. If this keyword stays, there should be at least a paragraph somewhere (I recommend Introduction) and explain why the dual-purpose nature imporant for AW economics.

Line 75: The transition from ordinal scales (Katzenberger et al. [20]) to ratio scales (Poulopoulou et al. [21]) is mentioned in one sentence. Please explain it a little bit because it won’t be easy for some readers who are not familiar with these kind of protocols. A couple of sentences would suffice.

Line 151: "Locommotion" – typo. Should be "Locomotion." This appears in Table 1 and Table 3 (Line 273).

Line 234: Use Vissers et al. instead of Visser et al.

Line 272-276: In Table 3, The total AW score difference between CON and ORG is significant at p = 0.046 that just under the 0.05 threshold. Meanwhile, Table 3 reports tests for many individual indicators, most of which are not significant. With this number of comparisons, the chance of a borderline result increases. I am not asking for a formal correction, but some caution in the interpretation would be appropriate.

Line 323: In Table 4, Some values are extremely small (e.g., -0.0001 for AI costs in ORG). Reporting to four decimal places for such numbers gives a misleading impression of precision. Consider rounding, please.

Line 368: The quadratic model includes AW score and AW score² (AW score_square – Table 6), which are naturally correlated. This is a known issue in polynomial regressions. Did the authors center the AW score variable before squaring? If not, multicollinearity could inflate standard errors. Reporting VIF values would clarify this.

Line 625-627 The reference says OIE (2015), but the annual report shows 2013. If it is 2013, reference should be updated else not.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript addresses a relevant and timely topic by integrating animal welfare (AW) assessment with economic evaluation at the farm level. The combination of resource-based and animal-based indicators, along with the attempt to model AW costs, provides useful insights and contributes to ongoing discussions on the economic implications of improving animal welfare in dairy systems. Overall, the study is generally technically sound, and the analyses are appropriate. The manuscript is well written and well structured. However, several points should be clarified or slightly revised to improve transparency and interpretation. While the statistical methods are appropriate, the interpretation of the relationship between AW score and AW cost could be presented more cautiously. Given the cross-sectional nature of the data, it would be helpful to emphasize that the findings reflect associations rather than causal relationships. The AW scoring system would benefit from a brief additional clarification regarding the weighting and aggregation of indicators, as these choices may influence the results. Some economic assumptions (e.g., assumed milk yield reductions under grazing scenarios) could be more clearly justified or discussed in terms of potential variability across farms. The conclusion section is generally well written; however, the interpretation of the findings could be slightly moderated to better reflect the limitations of the study design and sample size. Finally, the Data Availability Statement should be revised to fully comply with PLOS ONE data-sharing requirements, as the data are currently stated to be available upon request rather than through a public repository.

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-->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

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewer.pdf

From theory to practice: a case study on estimating the costs of improving animal welfare on Simmental alpine dairy farms

PONE-D-26-03557R1

Dear Dr. Zanon,

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,

Yasin ALTAY, Ph. D.

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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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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

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-->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: Points to resolve before acceptance:

Ethics statement inconsistency. The submission-form ethics statement indicates the study "was approved by the Research Ethics Committee," whereas the Methods section states that "formal ethical approval was not required." These must be made consistent.

Minor / typographical:

"Departement" → "Department" (affiliation 4).

Table 1: "Hairless sports" → "Hairless spots."

"Dystocia occurence" → "occurrence" (Tables 1 and 3).

"smallscale" → "small-scale."

Reviewer #2: The authors have adequately addressed my previous comments. The manuscript has improved, particularly in the interpretation of the AW score-cost relationship, the clarification of the scoring and aggregation approach, the justification of economic assumptions, and the moderation of the conclusions. Although the data are not fully publicly available due to privacy restrictions, the authors have provided a justification and contact information for data access. I consider the manuscript acceptable 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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