PONE-D-20-37238

Importance of choosing appropriate methods for assessing wild food plant knowledge and use: a case study among the Baka in Cameroon.

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sandrine Gallois

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PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

Paper needs followings changes/improvements and data provisions; in order to proceed it for further.

(1) needs to improve English language, there are many mistakes in the article.(letter of English experts reviewed as supporting needed.

(2) letter of Ethical and ISE and other institution permission letters are required.

(3) The references cited in text and reference section needs to be rechecked as it has many mistakes in it.

(4) Figure of study area needed.

(5) model of questionnaire needed.

(6) Families names are not correct, recheck and resend table 1.

(7) Provide ubiquitous herbarium numbers for all plants collected. it has two types of numbering.

(8) Figures are dim/blurred, send high density/good quality figures.

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The importance of choosing appropriate methods for assessing wild food plant knowledge and use: a case study among the Baka in Cameroon.

PONE-D-20-37238R1

Dear Dr. Sandrine Gallois

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.

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Kind regards,

Dr. Muhammad Ishtiaq Ch.

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

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #5: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #6: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #7: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

Reviewer #6: Yes

Reviewer #7: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: N/A

Reviewer #4: I Don't Know

Reviewer #5: Yes

Reviewer #6: Yes

Reviewer #7: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

Reviewer #6: Yes

Reviewer #7: Yes

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

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

Reviewer #6: Yes

Reviewer #7: 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: I have reviewed the article and have found it sound and valid for publication. The revisions have addressed the comments made by the reviewers.

Reviewer #2: Previous Suggestions and comments are incorporated, however, article format need to be improved according to PLOS format.

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: I recommend acceptance of the paper for publication because authors have revised the paper successfully.

Reviewer #5: PONE-D-20-37238R1

The importance of choosing appropriate methods for assessing wild food plant knowledge and use: a case study among the Baka in Cameroon.

Reviewer Response:

This manuscript needs following changes/improvements in order to proceed further:

1. In the abstract section, the line number 37 should be rephrased as; We discussed the limitation and strength of these different methods for investigating the diversity of wild food plant; their available knowledge and usage.

2. Grammatical errors should be improved e.g. use of helping verbs, placements of punctuation signs.

a. Line number 110: Plant knowledge of a certain group of people; should be corrected as; plant knowledge by a certain group of people.

b. Line number 112: The specimen of species mentioned during free listing should be corrected as; specimen of species identified during free listing.

c. Line number 115: All useful plants they know and/or use should be corrected as; all useful plants they know or their usage.

3. The line number 38 should be made understandable as; Hence, this analysis will help to further investigate more information regarding wild food plant and their usage frequency, through mixed approach the combines in-situ and ex-situ methods.

4. The line number 70; According to Ngome et al.; as reference number is already given, so rearrange the sentence like; According to another study reported,… .

5. From line number 100 to 123; the list of different ethnobotanical method used in this investigation should be included in the methodology section.

6. Line number 156: the sentence should be like; how do different methods for assessing WEP used in this study vary in their results?

7. It is suggested to have a scheme of study i.e. comprehensive framework under which the study is designed and executed e.g. a flow chart or a step by step methodology (figure) followed in this investigation.

8. Line number 180: our inventory of wild food plant knowledge, use and commercialization should be corrected as; our inventory of wild food plant knowledge, their usage and its commercialization.

9. All the tables in the manuscript should be justified as, “Centered- alignment” for all cells of the table; or keep the same alignment for all the tables.

10. Table 1; number of participants should be corrected as; (number of participants= n).

11. Line number 274; kindly mention the figure number.

12. Line number 354; it is recommended to rephrase the heading as; WEP parts used and their preparation method.

13. Line number 336; as this line is a part of table number 2, so try to align it on the same page with the table.

14. Table number 3; please elaborate what denotes “y” here.

15. Line number 525- 541; if this information can be presented in tabular or graphical form/as there is no reference given for any table or figure, that where they are presented.

16. Line number 572; on a population level in our sample should be like; on a population level in our sample collection.

17. Line number 575; kindly correct the formatting mistake.

18. It is suggested that “The accuracy of different methods used in this investigation can be presented either in a graphical or tabular form to highlight their efficiency”.

Reviewer #6: It is suggested to list plant species which are used as folk medicine in a separate list and those which are consumed as dietary by people. Are any plants that have not been reported by plant taxonomists?

Reviewer #7: In this study, Gallois et al present a case study suggesting the importance of appropriate methods for assessing wild food plant knowledge and consumption.

The comments raised by the previous reviewers were very pertinent, and authors have satisfactorily addressed all but one comment, i.e. the quality of figures is still poor and needs to be improved. Authors must provide high quality pictures. Other than that, the manuscript is in good shape and acceptable for publication.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Muhammad Azeem Abbas

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes: Dr. SOHAIL

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: No

Reviewer #6: Yes: Kadhim M. Ibrahim

Reviewer #7: No

Attachments

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Submitted filename: PONE-D-20-37238_R1_reviewer.pdf

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Submitted filename: Reviewer Response.docx