After this article [1] was published, it was identified as being linked to a series of submissions for which PLOS identified concerns about authorship and potential competing interests. The concerns have implications for the integrity of this article’s peer review and the article’s adherence to PLOS policies, but PLOS ONE concluded that the evidence pertaining to this article was inconclusive.
PLOS reassessed the article with input from an Editorial Board member, and noted concerns about this article’s contribution to the field given the study design and other published work that addressed similar research questions (e.g. [2–4]).
The PLOS ONE Editors issue this Expression of Concern to notify readers of the above issues.
The corresponding author noted that there are errors in Table 2: the significance markings (column 4) for both the 4th sternite length and 1st Wax mirror length should be **.
The data underlying this article’s results are in S1 File.
References
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- 2. Alquarni AS, Balhareth HM, and Owayss AA (2013) Queen morphometric and reproductive characters of Apis mellifera jemenitica, a native honey bee to Saudi Arabia. Bulletin of Insectology 66 (2): 239–244. ISSN 1721-8861
- 3. Taha E-KA and Alqarni AS (2013) Morphometric and Reproductive Organs Characters of Apis mellifera jemenitica Drones in Comparison to Apis mellifera carnica. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research 4(10): 411–415. ISSN 2229-5518
- 4. Al-Chamdi AA, Nuru A, Khanbash MS, and Smith DR(2015) Geographical distribution and population variation of Apis mellifera jemenitica Ruttner. Journal of Apicultural Research, 52:3, 124–133.
Citation: The PLOS ONE Editors (2023) Expression of Concern: Morphometric study of Yemeni (Apis mellifera jemenitica) and Carniolan (A. m. carnica) honeybee workers in Saudi Arabia. PLoS ONE 18(4): e0284678. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284678
Published: April 19, 2023
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