-->PONE-D-25-65088-->-->Using honeybees for national scale long-term eDNA biomonitoring-->-->PLOS One

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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-->5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: The article presents an interesting study on citizen science and the survey of eDNA in the honeycomb. The samples were collected by farmers and hobbyists across the United Kingdom. One thing I greatly appreciate about the article is the description of the process of engaging with citizens across the UK, including the use of websites to create surveys and collect metadata. The article also presents the numbers of samples and the issues surrounding their collection and processing.

The results are generally descriptive and could be considered a bit light. However, they do demonstrate the utility of the DNA results. They were able to relate the honey source to multiple plant types across the UK. This can be quite valuable for understanding the foraging behaviour of honey bees, which are under threat from pollution and other anthropogenic pressures, but also for monitoring the landscape and climate utility.

How could the DNA information be quite useful? Other things like predicting or monitoring plant diseases. It can also be used to monitor pathogens in bees. this process could also be expanded to other insects, which the authors explain in the discussion.

It was a good, informative read. Overall, the paper describes a clever and interesting project with potential future implications. It may not be very scientific or hypothesis-driven, but this information is good to know. It demonstrates the good utility of citizen science and could help further scientific investigations. This paper is good: it demonstrates the effective utility of citizen science, announces that this resource is available, and can serve as a good stepping stone (template) for those seeking to use citizen science or landscape biomonitoring.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript summarizes the results of the UK National Honey Monitoring Scheme, where they recruit volunteer beekeepers to collect and submit honey samples from hives located around the United Kingdom, which they then extract pollen DNA from and use DNA sequencing in order to identify and quantify which plant species the bees were foraging on. They summarize five years of data, and are able to show both geographical and chronological variation in the plants being foraged on by the bees.

As someone who is both a geneticist and an amateur beekeeper, I thought that this was a very fun paper to read. The results seem well supported by their data, and should be of interest to both scientists as well as members of the public. I have no major criticisms of the paper, although I did find a few minor grammatical errors that should be corrected before publication.

Line 57: should be "significant implications FOR understanding"

Line 246: missing word "from" after "honey data"

Line 268: the word "including" should not be italicized

Line 339: should be "evidence OF competition"

Figure 4a: The "Urban/Suburban" box in the legend is cut off on the bottom.

Figure 4b: "Arable" is misspelled in the figure title. "Other Cereals" is misspelled in the figure legend.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Using honeybees for national scale long-term eDNA biomonitoring

PONE-D-25-65088R1

Dear Dr. Woodcock,

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,

Olav Rueppell

Academic Editor

PLOS One

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