Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SHELTERS CAN NEGATIVELY AFFECT GROWTH AND WELFARE IN LUMPFISH IF FEED IS DELIVERED CONTINUOUSLY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: Review for “Shelters can negatively affect growth and welfare in lumpfish if feed is delivered continuously” (#25538)

The work outlined in this manuscript is an attempt at answering why high mortalities are occurring in lumpfish subjected to salmon cages.  Although it is not directly applicable to a net pen scenario, given the experimental design are with tanks containing lumpfish only for a 28 day experiment, the results observed have merit. With some minor revisions and clarifications, I would recommend for publication.

Line #20. Add scientific name for Atlantic salmon
Line #45. Delete “much of this is”
Line #59. Delete “not mentioned much in literature, but”
Line 60 – 61. Please clarify. Is it not enough because of structures are not sturdy or because not enough space for the number of cleaners?
Line #100. What was the flow rate?
Line #110. Feeding. Only pellets are mentioned but no description of the feed. What was the brand used, pellet size, floating or sinking, percent protein & fat? Was it the typical feed used for lumpfish in captivity?
Line 117. Uneaten food was observed on the tank bottom. Was this uniform throughout all treatments? Clarify. Why would there be food on the tank bottom if fed properly?
Lines 174 – 175. The fact that fish with shelter had dark pigmentation compared to those without is interesting but unless you explain what this could mean in the discussion, it doesn’t have any significance. Delete.
Lines 186 – 187. Explain why fin health improved
Line 201. “or perhaps some other temporal divergence occurred.” Useless comment unless backed up. Explain
Line 209/212. The biomass in the tanks were said to be low density – 400 g/m3. Cages are considered low density at 10g/m3. How can both be low density when the experimental tanks are 40x that of cages? Reword.
Figure 2. Delete. Improved fin condition is mentioned in the text and the reader can also see it clearly in Figure 3.
Figure 4. Correct “Bocy” to “Body”
Figure 5. Delete unless explained significantly in text.

General comments:
There was no mention of water chemistries measured during this experiment. Even though flow through systems, with the uneaten feed left overnight on tank bottom, you cannot rule out water quality effects, especially if it was more prominent in one treatment group vs. another. Water chemistry parameters such as dissolved oxygen, total ammonia nitrogen, and nitrites should be provided.

The introduction is an excellent review of past and current methodologies for the removal of sea lice. However, to the general reader, a further introduction of how exactly the lumpfish clean the parasites off salmon would be beneficial. For instance, this experiment does not take into account the energy spent cleaning the salmon. Those that clean more do not need to feed pellets as much or do they need to be fed more often to compensate for energy cleaning salmon? It is assumed the lumpfish eat the parasites for nutrition? If low densities of lumpfish are in the cages, is there not enough of a parasite load to satiate the lumpfish’s diet? Alternately, in high parasite load environments, are lumpfish satiated so that methods of feeding inconsequential? This needs to be explained better in the introduction for the reader.

What is meant by manually feeding both in the cages and during this experiment? Is it typically done by broadcasting or placed in the same area at all times? Wouldn’t broadcast feeding prevent shelter effects?


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SHELTERS CAN NEGATIVELY AFFECT GROWTH AND WELFARE IN LUMPFISH IF FEED IS DELIVERED CONTINUOUSLY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This article is clear and unambiguous.  I found the article easy to read and follow.

In the Introduction I suggest the authors include a reference or two additional alternative treatments the industry has explored or continues to explore in treatment possibilities for sea lice.  The industry has used garlic, and even modern technical approaches such as “lice lasers”.  This would give a better sense to the reader on how devastating sea lice are in the aquaculture industry and the approach is to “try and investigate everything that kills lice”.  Lumpfish of course, as presented by the authors, representing one of these possible approaches.

The article is a professional article and structure, figures/tables, and raw data were available.

The article is also self contained with relevant hypothesis.
Experimental design: This research is within scope of the journal.  The research question is well defined, relevant, and meaningful.

Lumpfish are a relatively unexplored species for natural or mechanical removal of sea lice.  There is also little literature available on the welfare or captive care of lumpfish.  Captive care of lumpfish needs to be quantified better.  Relying on wild brood stock is not sustainable in the long term and any information that contributes to the understanding of captive care is useful.

The authors do mention why fish farmers shun more “natural” refugia like artificial kelp.  There are many exciting possibilities for future research exploring this and the impacts on lumpfish health  (feeding) with host fish present.

The majority of the methods described in the article present with sufficient detail to replicate the process.  However, please clarify your thoughts related to the random aspect of treatments, particularly human disturbance of tanks. For example, why did you not open the automatic feed tank lids to simulate human disturbance e.g. at 8:30; 12:30: 15:30 when you were also feeding the manual tanks?  Are the fish used already habituated to human disturbance and raised completely in captivity?  You mention they are taken from “Nesvík Marine Centre”.  Do you find these fish habituate to human feeding and thus the fish you used for this experiment moved from human feeding to automatic feeding might have had a period of adjustment – thus consuming less food?

Please describe the feed type in detail.  Is this the same feed these fish were raised on previously?  From what I can gather in the literature lumpfish have a “blind spot” for feeding and will only eat suspended feed.  Did you use a partially buoyant feed?  A note (in methods) or a comment on the feeding behavior in the discussion related to this feeding blind spot would be useful.  For example, perhaps lumpfish in shelters could not see the feed suspended in the water column as well as control lumpfish or the feed sank faster when touching the shelters.  Did any feed end up on the shelters themselves (only the bottom is mentioned)?
Validity of the findings: The findings are valid as presented and not repetition of previous studies.

The conclusions are generally well stated and not over – reaching, if anything, the focus should be on improving captive care of lumpfish through examination of the feeding dynamics and body condition.

However, a wider connection to the salmon farming industry is merited.  The authors state “Therefore, based on the results from this experiment, we cautiously recommend that feed is delivered in meal times in such quantities that all fish are able to feed simultaneously.”  I appreciate being cautious but if I were a fish farmer/reader trying to understand this I would remain uncertain.  If I stock lumpfish in my pen, I don’t actually know where they are, and I can’t track them.  I’d suggest the authors, if they wish, comment more directly on what “advice” they would give to salmon farmers on shelter placement, and feeding manually versus automatically.  However in doing so, they state that the evidence in their research applies primarily to captive care or rearing of lumpfish.
Additional comments: I found the overall paper well written and not over reaching in their conclusions.  If anything, they could speculate on their advice to the average fish farmer working in a tank based rearing system (cultivating lumpfish) and compare this directly to a fish farmer raising salmon in netpens.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE AND PHOTOPERIOD ON THE TIMING OF BROOD ONSET IN HIBERNATING HONEY BEE COLONIES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: I find that this manuscript addresses an interesting question in a mostly clear way. I suggest that a bit more care needs to be taken with language throughout.

For example:
L 24 change "..sufficient worker force that allows to exploit floral resources in upcoming spring." to    "...sufficient worker force that allows the exploitation of floral resources in the upcoming spring."
L32 change "Tracking in-hive temperature as indicator for.." to "Tracking in-hive temperature as an indicator of.."
L43 change ".. in respect to" to "..with respect to"
L87 change "In the light of.." to "In light of.."
L89 - 90 change "... for one of the ecologically and economically most..." to "...for one of the most ecologically and economically important..."
L95 change ".. minimal invasive.." to "..minimally invasive.."
L125 change ".. equally to two.." to "..equally into two.."
L273 change "..isolation.." to "..insulation.."
Experimental design: Please describe whether colonies were checked for signs of disease before experiments were started. The presence of parasites and disease can have an effect on behaviour.
Validity of the findings: The results of the study are interesting and intriguing. It is indeed curious that no significant effect of ambient temperature on brood rearing under conditions of increasing or peaking photoperiod was found. With this in mind, I find that the main findings are overstated at the beginning of the discussion and in the conclusion. In particular, concluding that ambient temperature played a "major" role could be toned down.

The method used for indirectly detecting brood rearing by tracking thermoregulation is interesting and will be useful in future studies. However I suggest that discussion of this method is overly long in the discussion section and can be reduced. Additionally, I recommend introducing the testing and validating of this method as one of the aims of the study to provide a better connection between the different sections of the manuscript.

Because the different honey bee subspecies, also referred to as "ecotypes" are thought to be locally adapted to different environments, it would perhaps be interesting to mention why you chose to test the carnica subspecies, and how other subspecies might be differentially affected by temperature and photoperiod.

Additionally, as you highlight the possible involvement of an internal clock on brood rearing, it would be interesting to provide a little more detail on how this could operate in honey bees.
Additional comments: This study examines the effect of temperature and photoperiod on brood rearing activity in honey bees. If the authors can address the comments I have made, I think this manuscript has the potential to make an interesting contribution to PeerJ, and can promote further study on the factors driving brood rearing in honey bees, and importantly how climate change might affect this activity and what the potential consequences might be.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE AND PHOTOPERIOD ON THE TIMING OF BROOD ONSET IN HIBERNATING HONEY BEE COLONIES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The study by Nürnberger monitored the effects of ambient temperature, photoperiod and elapsed time on the brood rearing status within the winter cluster of honey bee colonies. This study is interesting and original in its goal to assess the effects of ambient temperature or photoperiod on brood rearing during winter in a minimal invasive way.
Experimental design: This paper is well suited to the journal and well written.  In general, the methods are well described and suitable to perform the study.
Validity of the findings: The authors have discussed the experimental outcomes and generally dealt fairly with the idiosyncrasies of the results. For these reasons, I have only minor comments or suggestions.
Additional comments: Lines 135. It would be useful to have here a very brief description of what kind of scenario each light regime is trying to simulate. Otherwise they look a bit random.

Lines 233-234: It is confusing that you mention "the complete data set" but the result here refers to 21 colonies, and not the 24 experimental colonies you used. Please clarify.

Lines 294-295: Since "cold" is a subjective term, it would be useful to remind the reader here what you mean by cold. For example: "...brood rearing activity was rarely detected under cold conditions (i.e. 0-3 degrees).

Line 314: It would be interesting that the authors mention here any other factor that could be involved in the timing of brood onset (e.g. diet).

Line 333: Are you referring to an inhibitory effect of photoperiod increase or photoperiod decrease? Please clarify in the text.

Line 362: The role of chemical stimuli on the initiation of warming behaviour in the colony, and thus brood rearing activity, should also be considered here. Chemical communication whithin honeybee colonies is crucial for the onset of brood rearing and other associated behaviours in the colony, and this shouldn´t be omitted in the text.

Figure 4: Typo in the description of "peaking". Please write photoperiod instead of pgotoperiod


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE AND PHOTOPERIOD ON THE TIMING OF BROOD ONSET IN HIBERNATING HONEY BEE COLONIES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: The authors addressed all my suggestions, and in my opinion they made many improvements to the manuscript. I think the article meets now the PeerJ criteria and should be accepted as is.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: IDENTIFICATION OF STEM RUST RESISTANCE GENES IN WHEAT CULTIVARS IN CHINA USING MOLECULAR MARKERS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: It is written in good English.
Experimental design: Experimental design is sufficient. But as i mentioned below, please cite the previous article rather than copied some of the materials and methods part.
Validity of the findings: It is replication of Xu et al. 2017. So the authors need to state clearly the rationale and benefits of  this paper in comparison to what is published.
Additional comments: Introduction
It has to be clearly stated what additional information this paper will bring to the wheat community in comparison to Xu et al. 2017 paper.

Materials and Methods
It is not clear. Are you tested a mixture of spring and winter wheat lines?
Most of the materials and methods are similar and explained in the same manner (particularly line 94-124) as indicated on Xu et al. 2017 paper. In this case, it is better to cite the paper.

Result
Table 1
Table 2

Conclusion
The article published by Xu et al. 2017 "Stem rust resistance genes evaluation and identification of Sr2, Sr24, Sr26, Sr31 2 and Sr38 in wheat lines from Gansu Province in China" has similar objective, used similar races and approach. the only difference is is the materials and the province where they are tested.

But Xu et al. 2017 concluded " The molecular markers linked to Sr2, Sr24, Sr26, Sr31, and Sr38 were used to detect the occurrence of these genes in 75 major wheat cultivars (lines) in Gansu Province in this study. The results showed that 35 tested cultivars might carry one of these genes." where as in this study it is concluded as "Overall, genes Sr31, and Sr38 were differently distributed across wheat regions in China and none of the wheat cultivars contained Sr24 and Sr26."

For me it looks a bit contradicting concerning Sr24 and Sr26. So it needs some verification.

Reference
According to PeerJ format, the references section should be sorted by author. But here it did not applied.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: IDENTIFICATION OF STEM RUST RESISTANCE GENES IN WHEAT CULTIVARS IN CHINA USING MOLECULAR MARKERS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Clear and professional English is used throughout the manuscript. A revision of the manuscript is attached with several suggested English improvements. The introduction section does provide adequate background with appropriate references. Figures are mostly high-quality, though the resolution of figure 1 is a bit low. Raw data is supplied
Experimental design: The experimental design is appropriate for the conclusions and goal of the study. Methods are well described.
Validity of the findings: Though seedling screening was not replicated, the replication is not absolutely necessary for PeerJ. Some similar studies have not replicated the seedling assays. Overall, the data are robust and conclusions are largely well-supported.
Additional comments: Overall the manuscript is well done and is worth publishing. I do have three suggested revisions in addition to a revision of the manuscript with suggestions for improving English:

The sentence in lines 71-73 is not completely accurate. The previous work identified resistance genes present in select wheat lines from Chinese provinces, but new Ug99 resistance genes were not identified. Please modify the sentence accordingly.

What are the isolate names of the Pgt races used in this study? Providing this information is necessary.

In the conclusion section the authors claim that additional studies are needed to confirm Sr2 postulations (I agree with this claim). However the results section is written as if the Sr2 marker data is clearly supportive of Sr2 gene presence/absence. Please describe in the results or conclusion section why the marker data available is not sufficient to accurately determine Sr2 presence/absence.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: WHY IS NONWORD READING SO VARIABLE IN ADULT SKILLED READERS?
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The abstract says that the analysis of the nonwords led to the identification of two factors that explain nonword reading variability. However, you were looking specifically at those factors so it is incorrect to say the analysis led to the identification of them. This would need revising to ensure it matches what was reported.
Experimental design: The literature review is comprehensive and informs the basis of the research itself. There were places where I was unclear on what the authors intended. On the first page of the literature review (lines 69-73) it essentially says that if a child could simply read a word they didn’t know they would be using their receptive vocabulary. This seems to be an underdeveloped point, especially as it relates to the next sentence arguing it is the basis for Share’s self-teaching hypothesis and for teaching phonics. This paragraph may need to be reworded to more clearly make the point regarding the relevance of nonword (unfamiliar word) for theories of learning to read.
The structure of the literature review does not help with clarity. There is an indepth explanation of the Pritchard data set in the middle of the literature review, which detracts from the main claim that nonword reading responses are variable. Perhaps it would be better for the explanation of the Pritchard data set to take place in the (currently not there) methodology section. This would make the literature review easier to follow. The findings of the Pritchard study should still be elaborated on as a reason to examine the human responses from the Pritchard study. However, this may need to be better integrated with the other studies that found variability. For example, there is a two sentence reference to Masterson and a figure from it, but this is not clearly explained in terms of its inclusion.
The purpose of the reference to Forster, and the relatively long quote, is not made clear. Perhaps the point could be made without the quote. The key argument appears to be that nonword reading variability can be explained by differences in graphemic parsing and phonemic assignment. I appreciate the reason for the examples of the acquired dyslexics, but I would suggest that there be a better link between that and normal readers. Otherwise, the reference to acquired dyslexia and the normal adult readers in the database used, is vague.
The subject-based variables explained in lines 231-241 do follow on from the previous discussion. However, the description of the three item-based variables (lines 240-254) is not as well explained in the prior section. This may need to be better related to the preceding literature review.
There are some complex and long sentences within the writing (e.g. lines 274-277). I found many of these sentences difficult to follow and reduced clarity in the authors’ argument.
I found the overall design of the study to be very interesting and a natural follow-on from the Pritchard et al. study.
Structurally I believe it would be helpful to have a methodology section in which the description of the data set and data analysis procedures are given would allow the results section to be more concise in the coverage of the analysis.
Why did Table 1 not have a column indicating the number of phonemes used in the phoneme assignment analysis? This would help with the interpretation of the phoneme assignment analysis.
Validity of the findings: No Comment
Additional comments: It is stated (lines 609-617) that graphemic parsing explains some of the variability in nonword reading. I note that graphemic parsing was measured by the omission and insertion of graphemes (as measured by phoneme assignment missing or added; lines281-292). In this way it is when phonemes are more or less than graphemes. There is a great deal of variability in this, particularly in terms of the difference between turning one vowel digraph grapheme into two phonemes (mentioned in lines 614-617) and adding an entirely new phoneme as in example a (lines 285-287). Perhaps the definition of non-standard grapheme parsing needs revising, for clarity.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: WHY IS NONWORD READING SO VARIABLE IN ADULT SKILLED READERS?
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: A possible improvement is to comment more on "grapheme sets". The researchers say that different adults may have different grapheme sets, e.g., whether or not they are aware of the silent e pattern as in “gwene” to help with reading of this nonword. It does seem to explain why some of the 45 undergraduates were so variable in responses. Some their grapheme sets may be due to a high level of implicit learning, that is, statistical learning of GPCs through reading of text rather than routine application of GPCs when identifying words. Thus, many of the graphemes in the test material might give difficulty even though they were legal graphemes since they might not have been seen before. It would be interesting to compare adults who did and did not learn GPC rules at school and whether they would make the same mistakes. Further studies might look at this question. It might throw light on the possible value of GPC knowledge for reading acquisition over the long term.
Additional comments: it is a nicely written study.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: WHY IS NONWORD READING SO VARIABLE IN ADULT SKILLED READERS?
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: I have no further comments to add.
Experimental design: I have no further comments to add.
Validity of the findings: I have no further comments to add.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HIGH CORRELATION BETWEEN SKIN COLOR BASED ON CIELAB COLOR SPACE, EPIDERMAL MELANOCYTE RATIO, AND MELANOCYTE MELANIN CONTENT
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: Evaluating skin color by objective measurement is important clinically in dermatology. Huang et al. found a high correlation between L* value and the product of epidermal melanocyte ratio (R) and melanin content (M) in Asian young adult skins. The experiments yielded an equation L* = -0.095 x (M x R) + 55.872 for estimating skin color. This formula was validated on additional experiments using skin substituents. The study is technically sound and contains information on ethical consideration and reproducibility of the data. However, there are several points that should be improved before acceptance of this manuscript.

Major points:
1) The authors did not make it clear why they thought the melanocyte ratio (R) important to study. This point is important because there are many studies relating spectral measurement of skin color to melanin content which is equal to R x M. Also, some comments on the rather high variation of the epidermal melanocyte ratio within the same ethnic origin will be welcome. Any similar findings in literature?
2) In relation to the above 1), discussion should be expanded to include some more literatures studying the objective measurements of human skin color. Examples are:
a) Alaluf et al. The impact of epidermal melanin on objective measurements of human skin colour. Pigment Cell Res. 15, 119-126, 2002.
b) Del Bino et al. Chemical analysis of constitutive pigmentation of human epidermis reveals constant eumelanin to pheomelanin ratio. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 28, 707-717, 2015.
3) The (clinical) significance of the above equation relating L* to M x R is not clearly written. How will the authors plan to use the formula clinically?
4) Reproducibility of the data: It is clear that skin color measurement was performed three times. But for the melanocyte ratio (n = 5?) and melanin concentration (n = 3?), how the reproducibility was assessed was not described.

Minor points:
1) Melanocyte ratio: This should be defined at the first appearance.
2) Table 1: I believe that n = 5 for epidermal melanocyte ratio.
3) Line 66, and could the influence: A verb is required here.
4) Line 129: The volume of 1 N NaOH should be given. Also, 1 M or 1 mol/L is better.
5) Line 160, SE: According to the raw data provided by the Authors, SD (standard deviation) is actually given instead of SE (standard error).
6) Lines 223 to 225, Arthur et al. and Kahn & Cohen : Arthur et al. is not listed in REFERENCES. Also, what Arthur et al. found and Kahn & Cohen found should be more clearly presented.
7) Lines 229 to 231, Geel et al., Mulekar, van Geel: Are Geel et al and van Geel et al. identical? What did Mulekar say?
8) Line 243, Alaluf et al.: This should be "Alaluf et al. (2002)".
9) Lines 285-287: The log values of eumelanin/pheomelanin ratio... This data was not presented in Ito & Wakamatsu (2003). Instead, a similar data on human hair was reported in: Naysmith et al. Quantitative measures of the effect of the melanocortin 1 receptor on human pigmentary status. J. Invest. Dermatol. 122, 423-428, 2004.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HIGH CORRELATION BETWEEN SKIN COLOR BASED ON CIELAB COLOR SPACE, EPIDERMAL MELANOCYTE RATIO, AND MELANOCYTE MELANIN CONTENT
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Quality of written English is mostly good. The manuscript would benefit from a final read-through by a native speaker of English.

Quite a lot of the information in the first part of the discussion might be better placed into the introduction to give the study its clinical context?

Line 239 - the comment and references cited seem not to reflect the wide range of work published in the last 10 years in the understanding of regulatory factors in skin pigmentation. Consider revising this sentence and use of references given the discussion goes onto discuss some examples?

Abstract background please state that the premise for the work is in the field of transplantation or tissue regeneration for e.g. vitiligo/burns.

minor language comments :

Line 41...the L* value correlated with the value obtained by ....ratio (R) with melanin....and that this correlation was much more statistically significant that either L* vs M or L* vs R. This suggests that a .....color can be achieved taking into account both R and M.
Line 45....not sure what is suggested here. Do the authors require a more substantial study to improve the predictive model or are they suggesting that each clinical case requires such data?
Line 50...color match for the purpose of?.....
Line 66....donation, thus the influence....
Line 69...and melanocyte number and activity.
Line 70..correlations between...
Line 282 - referencing style?
Line 285 - make it clear that the statement about L,a,b refers to data in the cited literature
Experimental design: Generally meets aims of the journal and is relevant to a clinical problem.

Can the authors be sure that the method of melanocyte quantification is not confounded by cell losses? The %ratio or M to E is lower than reported in the literature (1:16; appx 6%).

Some minor points noted below.

Line 80 HMGS spell out in full
Line 101; after how much time in culture was the media switch made?
Line 146 ;The ratios used in the skin equivalent should be mentioned.
Line 192...it is really no correlation not weak!
Line 193; was this correlation statistically significant? Why interestingly? Surely it is expected that L values that are lower indicate higher levels of melanin?
Line 195...product of
Validity of the findings: Can the authors explain their rationale for choosing the product of R and M vs L*?
The correlation of melanin content with the melanin ratio world be expected to show an increase in melanin with a higher ratio. Thus hypothesis that varying melanocyte number relates to associated degree of activity and thus to L* value is not proven by these data and the use of the product of M and R would seem to overcome/mask the differential contribution of either of these measured parameters to color. What would seem to be a negative correlation between M and R needs to be referred to and discussed. Normalising M to R (M/R) vs L* reveals no correlation.

However, the tissue engineering data presented does indicate that L* can be engineered using an appropriate R value, although a table of all Ratio's used vs L* measured would be helpful.

The conclusion would benefit from some suggestions on why there is little or negative relationship between total melanin and R and the significance especially as R is the only variable that can be adjusted in the future design?
Additional comments: The authors could consider including some more recent references on the genetic control of pigmentation within ethnicity that may underlie inter-individual and intra-racial differences.

Renee P. Stokowski, et al. A Genomewide Association Study of Skin Pigmentation in a South Asian Population,The American Journal of Human Genetics,Volume 81, Issue 6,2007,Pages 1119-1132,

Wilson S. et al. (2013) NCKX5, a Natural Regulator of Human Skin Colour Variation, Regulates the Expression of Key Pigment Genes MC1R and Alpha-MSH and Alters Cholesterol Homeostasis in Normal Human Melanocytes. In: Annunziato L. (eds) Sodium Calcium Exchange: A Growing Spectrum of Pathophysiological Implications. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 961. Springer, Boston, MA


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HIGH CORRELATION BETWEEN SKIN COLOR BASED ON CIELAB COLOR SPACE, EPIDERMAL MELANOCYTE RATIO, AND MELANOCYTE MELANIN CONTENT
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: The authors have adequately addressed the points raised by the Editor and the Reviewers.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HIGH CORRELATION BETWEEN SKIN COLOR BASED ON CIELAB COLOR SPACE, EPIDERMAL MELANOCYTE RATIO, AND MELANOCYTE MELANIN CONTENT
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Much improved following revision. Th authors have addressed reviewers comments

Minor issues

Abstract Discussion . the sentence does not need 'of' in 'value of obtained'
Line 26: melanocytes are transplanted
Line 77: revise this phrase 'To alternate the heavy suction apparatus' as it is not clear what it means
Line 307-9: this statement is now repetitive - suggest delete or make any further additional point?
A recent study has reported a good correlation between total melanin content in the epidermis and melanosome size in these subjects, suggesting melanosome size may be correlated (at least in part) with the amount of melanin (Alaluf
et al., 2002a).
Experimental design: Acceptable
Validity of the findings: Acceptable
Additional comments: Thank you for addressing the reviewers comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ALTITUDINAL PATTERNS IN BREEDING BIRD SPECIES RICHNESS AND DENSITY IN RELATION TO CLIMATE, HABITAT HETEROGENEITY, AND MIGRATION INFLUENCE IN A TEMPERATE MONTANE FOREST (SOUTH KOREA)
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This study investigated the breeding bird richness and density distribution along the elevation gradient in 2015 and examined the effects of climate and habitat variables on the observed pattern. What I appreciate most about this study is the following an empirical approach. However, clarification of the methods and terminology is required, as well as improvements in language usage.

Although authors mentioned the widely tested hypothesis in the field in the introduction, I think the introduction can be shortened with a more focused oriented to their own question and hypothesis. Some sentences are long, wordy, and the linkage between following sentences are missing. For instance, Line25-28, Line 28-3. Moreover, the sentences Line 52-54 and Line 55-56 are contrary to each other.

Authors tested the effects of climate and habitat heterogeneity to explain the observed pattern; however, there is no explicitly hypotheses stated in the manuscript. For instance, what do you expect to see is in species richness when understory coverage increases?

The figure captions should give more information about the plots; for instance, you can add one or two sentences to tell what the categories in coverage of vegetation are. Figure axis also should show the unit of the variables such as Fig.3.a, is spring temperature in degrees C?

Please check Table 2. There are two models with delta AICc is equal to 0 for density models.

There is a room for English improvements in the manuscript. There are some unneccary sentences or poor transitions and topic flow between sentences. For instance, Lines 152-156 are unneccary information in this section, becuase neither species turnover or beta diversity is a topic of this manuscript.
Experimental design: My first concern about the mismatch of spatial and temporal resolution of datasets used in the study. The bird surveys were carried out within a group of 50 m radius area, climate variables are downscaled to 1 x 1 km, vertical habitat (vegetation % coverage) is measured in 5m radius areas, and horizontal habitat type and each type area coverage 150 m radius circle. The species observation and vertical habitat heterogeneity datasets covered two months field survey, climate data is gathered from a climate simulation for 3 months, and there is no information for landcover dataset used for calculation horizontal habitat heterogeneity. I strongly recommend adding a clarification in the manuscript to address these spatial and temporal resolution mismatches. An appendix with a graph (scattered or box plot) showing the observed environmental variable among sampling sites would be helpful to understand these patterns as well.

My second concern is the term "migrant rate". I think this phrase can misguide the readers. Instand of migrant rate, authors can consider using "migratory bird ratio". Also please include a justification about using arcsine square root to standardize this data. I think no transformation for this data is required.

Best-fit curves show the relationship between solely one variable and species richness or density. Although Fig.S4 shows only two variables distribution among elevation gradient, a graph showing the altitudinal distribution of each other variable would be really useful to connect these results to the altitudinal gradient. Maybe these graphs can be moved to the main manuscript.

Moreover, I wonder if the authors considered the differences in the number of parameters when comparing models via AICc; for instance, the migrant rate of species (MRS) and spring temperature (SP) looks like a pretending (uninformative) parameters (Table 2), therefore, they should be removed from the models. I recommend the authors reading Arnold (2010)
Arnold, T.W. 2010. Uninformative Parameters and Model Selection Using Akaike’s Information Criterion. J. Wildl. Manage. 74(6): 1175–1178.
Validity of the findings: The manuscript used a dataset from a rarely studied, therefore, it has a benefit to literature.  Authors did a good work to connect the ideas in the conclusion to them in the introduction; however, an extensive revision is required to pitch the ideas and deliver these ideas to the readers more clearly.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ALTITUDINAL PATTERNS IN BREEDING BIRD SPECIES RICHNESS AND DENSITY IN RELATION TO CLIMATE, HABITAT HETEROGENEITY, AND MIGRATION INFLUENCE IN A TEMPERATE MONTANE FOREST (SOUTH KOREA)
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: Dear Author:
Your manuscript is interesting, but I have two general remarks:
a)	No discussion regarding to the latest literature.
b)	It seems to me (unfortunately, based on M & M, I can not evaluation this) that GLM is not a proper analysis, it suggests using GLZ (due to distributions).
Line 4: should be: these still remain
Line 7: please delete „Jirisan National Park”
Line 8: change for „above mean sea level” to „asl”
Line 10: in line 7 you write only about „species richness” now is also density. Please standardize
Line 11: „Models constructed with 16 combinations of” Please, be more precise
Line 13: unclear
Line 14-15: not important for the abstract
Line 17-22: unclear
Line 28: is newest paper about this pattern: Kosicki 2017: Ecological Modeling
Line 30: see paper Kosicki 2017: Environmental modeling and assessment
Line 105: please add size of study plots
Line 110: please write how it was done: LIDAR?
Line 133: I think that the predictors should be extended by: the shape of the patches, area of cover and buffer zone of the patches
Line 161: please extend the results by: relative importance (RI) and evidence ratio. See details in Burnham & Anderson, 2002
Line: 161: correlation and variance inflection factors (VIF) between predictors is necessary,
Line 240: polynomial fucntion ax2+bx+c ?
Line 258: please discuss other aspects of the altitude: roughness, aspect etc.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ALTITUDINAL PATTERNS IN BREEDING BIRD SPECIES RICHNESS AND DENSITY IN RELATION TO CLIMATE, HABITAT HETEROGENEITY, AND MIGRATION INFLUENCE IN A TEMPERATE MONTANE FOREST (SOUTH KOREA)
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: In my opinion English is clear and professional in all text but I am not native. No information about habitat type in the title. I suggest to change the end of the title “…influence in a montane temperate forest (South Korea)”. The structure of the article is consistent with the journal guidelines. Introduction is sufficient and present a wide context of the study. Study area is too short and it was not described enough. More information is needed about waters, agriculture areas, forests structure and human activity. No information about open areas (e.g. glades) in the study area. The term “above sea level” should be written in abbreviation (a.s.l.) to reduce space. Symbol “]” should be deleted (line 251).The manuscript includes all results relevant to the hypothesis. Results were discussed based on many references. Literature was appropriate  referenced. However, reference Burnham KP, Anderson DR, Huyvaert KP (2011) was not cited in the text. Figure 1 is not clear. What are rectangles? Does the line show a border of the Natural Park? In Figure 3e and 4e x axis is described as “Coverage of Overstory vegetaion”  and should be “Coverage of Overstory vegetation”. I suggest to move Table 1 to Supplementary files. The worst model should be added (below the best model) for response variables in Table 2. The order should be changed in description of variables in Table 3:  first abbreviation and then full description after dash. Some Latin names of species in Table S1 are not correct:
Is: Bubo Bubo; Should be: Bubo bubo
Is: Bonasa bonasia; Should be: Tetrastes bonasia
Is: Troglodyte troglodytes; Should be: Troglodytes troglodytes
Some supplementary files (Fig. S3, Fig. S4 and Table S2) should be placed in Results instead in Discussion.
Experimental design: The study is original research within the aims and scope of the PeerJ journal. Research question is well definied and relevant. However the aims of study should be more general than specific. I suggest to give the type of habitat instead  “…at Jirisan National Park, South Korea, situated in a temperate region” (lines 84-85). The study was conducted with high technical and ethical standard. Appropriate permits for study in the Jirisian National Park has been obtained. The research required to gather many variables. Generally methods was sufficiently described. In my opinion statistical methods are appropriate for data analysis. All habitat types used for the habitat diversity index should be presented in Material and Methods (line 146).
Validity of the findings: The presented research is interesting. In my opinion the study provides a new data and broadens a knowledge. The data are sufficient and well analyzed. Conclusion are well stated.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ALTITUDINAL PATTERNS IN BREEDING BIRD SPECIES RICHNESS AND DENSITY IN RELATION TO CLIMATE, HABITAT HETEROGENEITY, AND MIGRATION INFLUENCE IN A TEMPERATE MONTANE FOREST (SOUTH KOREA)
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no coments
Experimental design: no coments
Validity of the findings: no coments
Additional comments: Dear Authors
I agree with your comments and accept your explanations.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ALTITUDINAL PATTERNS IN BREEDING BIRD SPECIES RICHNESS AND DENSITY IN RELATION TO CLIMATE, HABITAT HETEROGENEITY, AND MIGRATION INFLUENCE IN A TEMPERATE MONTANE FOREST (SOUTH KOREA)
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: In my opinion the manuscript was improved and the new version is better than previous one. The small mistakes must be corrected.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The manuscript was changed according to the most of suggestions. The better hypotheses were given in introduction. Methods were described clear. New information about habitat was added by inserting new figure (Fig. 2) to methods.
I accept your explanation to my suggestion about changing place of some supplementary files. My intention was changing of the place of citation of these files. I found that table S3 has been cited in results in the manuscript. I agree that Fig. S1 and Fig. S2  are cited in the discussion.

Moreover, I found small mistakes:
Line 13 – I think the better first word of the sentence is „However” than „And”.
Table S2 - The name of Tetrastes bonasia was given not correct (is Troglodytes bonasia).


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: IMPACT OF CROP RESIDUE MANAGEMENT ON CROP PRODUCTION AND SOIL CHEMISTRY AFTER SEVEN YEARS OF CROP ROTATION IN TEMPERATE CLIMATE, LOAMY SOILS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript is generally well written in good English. However, the abstract should be more explicit, more clear/precise and could be more concise (see specific comments). In the introduction section, please define specific research questions and/or hypotheses, which can be tested. It becomes clear why you do this long-term experiment, but the hypotheses could be stated more clearly. In addition, the results part is poorly structured and therefore makes some of the discussion sections hard to understand. In the discussion, you should not only compare your values to literature, but also discuss why in your particular experiment you observed These specific effects and what you can conclude from this. At the moment, the conclusions are weak and not always supported by your findings. Additionally, you argue that the duration of the trial might have been too short to find significant effects, but you don't say what you would expect in the long-term.
Experimental design: The latin square design of the long-term trial is clear and makes sense for the purpose of the experiment. However, as mentioned above, the research questions are kept very general and there are no testable hypotheses. In addition, there is some lack of details in the methods and a basic soil characterisation (initial pH, soil organic carbon, texture, CEC, N, P, K concentrations...) is missing. This should be added.
Validity of the findings: Even though, the statistics are well described in the methods section, the statistical results are not reported adequately. 2-way ANOVA would be appropriate with the main factors tillage (RT, CT) and residue management (IN, OUT) and the ANOVA table should be reported (e.g. in the supplementary information). Then, treatment means should be compared with an appropriate post hoc test such as Tukey HSD. If you average over treatment levels, this should be clearly stated and argued why it was done.

Generally, I agree, that your long-term trial contributes to the understanding of yield developments and nutrient dynamics under different tillage and residue management and that the results are highly relevant for sustainable agricultural practises.
Additional comments: One specific comment here: It would be good if you reported the residue and grain N, P, K concentrations in mg/kg and not only the imports and exports in kg/ha.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: IMPACT OF CROP RESIDUE MANAGEMENT ON CROP PRODUCTION AND SOIL CHEMISTRY AFTER SEVEN YEARS OF CROP ROTATION IN TEMPERATE CLIMATE, LOAMY SOILS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript “Impact of crop residue management on crop production and soil fertility after seven years of crop rotation in a temperate climate and loamy soil” evaluates the effect of residue management and tillage on the crop production and soil properties.  It is praiseworthy that authors have done extensive data collection over several years period. However, I regret that this manuscript cannot be published as such due to very inconsistent and poor presentation. Specifically, the material and method section is not clear and the results presented (along with Tables and Figures) are not provided with sufficient statistical analyses.
I have following suggestion to authors to improve this manuscript:
Abstract:
L30: Authors talk about six crops, but only three are given; winter wheat, faba bean and maize, what are other three crops?
L38: Please first give abbreviation for nutrient, and then use abbreviated form later in the text.
L45: incomplete sentence

Introduction
L60: “However, the actual impact of straw incorporation is often discussed (Poeplau et al. 2015)”. Please write what does this study suggest; positive, negative or either both impacts of the straw incorporation.
Experimental design: The method section is not sufficiently described.
L108-109 states “ It has to be noted that stubble and chaff are always left on the fields, even if the rest of the residue is exported”. However, Line 133-134 states that residue (OUT: Stubble and Chaff). These two statements create confusion on residue management strategies. Were the stubble and chaff left on the field or were they exported? Please clarify the treatment description.
L117-118: What equipment was used for sowing?
L136 :  what is composite grain sample. For example, it is the ears or cobs or grain of maize, or pods or seeds of faba bean and similarly the case for wheat?
L137: “ We also collected the residues present on 1 m2 per plot…..does this area represent the statistical unit. Residue NPK content can vary depending on which part used for sampling, for instance, the grain chaff or the straw? Replication in the residue NPK determination is the must.
In crop sampling and Analysis:
Describe in detail the method of harvesting for the individual crop, as well their residue harvesting?
L146: how was soil sampling conducted? Was it done using Auger or Giddings probe? How were soil samples composited?
L147: what was the mass of soil sample used for soil organic carbon determination? Was it done in the fresh or air dried sample?
L152-157: Similar to SOC determination how was sampling conducted for nitrate? Were Augers used? How was nitrate content determined, was the sample air dried or fresh?
L162-163: why statistical test not reported when the interactions were not significant, were there no main effect as well?
Statistical Analyses:
How the crop growth parameters; germination, yield... and soil properties over different years test? Were there any repeated measure analysis?
Validity of the findings: Results need to be supported by strong statistical analyses for the validity.
Result:
L184-185: three out of six crops…where and which are other three crops?
L189: what was the sowing density for different crops; wasn't it different for different crops? How can sowing density for different crops such as faba bean, wheat and maize be averaged?
L192-196: where are the results presented? Tables/Figures?
L200-206 and Figure 1: were there any statistical differences, please give p values.
L211 and throughout the text: please present important result in figures or tables, not in Appendix.
Table 7: Please do not use common after each number, if it is the decimal point then use so.
Table 3 and 4: What is global rate?
In tables general:
Write down if the comparisons are made within the row or column.
Please present standard error instead of stand deviation, also in case of figures.
In Figure 4: what do single and double stars represent?

Discussion
In several instances, authors suggested that similar findings are already established in the literature such as
“L293-295- A similar lack of correlation between shoot biomass and grain yield…..has previously been observed……
L319-321-Just like previous studies………we showed reduced tillage provoked ……
L330-331-Such a lack of impact was also reported…..”
Readers are therefore left wondering what new does this study suggests besides already established facts in literature. More discussion on the results is required.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: IMPACT OF CROP RESIDUE MANAGEMENT ON CROP PRODUCTION AND SOIL CHEMISTRY AFTER SEVEN YEARS OF CROP ROTATION IN TEMPERATE CLIMATE, LOAMY SOILS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: This work focuses on the impacts of crop residue management (returned to soil vs exported) and type of tillage (reduced tillage depth vs conventional ploughing) on crop production and soil chemical properties. The effects of these management strategies were evaluated on a 7-year field-experiment under a temperate climate and a loamy soil. This paper presents interesting results showing some trends in differentiation for soil properties on the short-term, which potentially suggest more important changes on the long term.

Overall, the manuscript is clear and well structured. The background and the research question (lines 88-93) are clearly introduced and defined, the field experiment and methods are well suited to answer the questioning and the results are nicely discussed.

As a non-native English speaker, I do not feel well qualified to evaluate the language used.
Specific comments are detailed in my comments to the authors.
Experimental design: The field experimental design detailed in part 2.2 (lines 105-127) makes, in my opinion, the strength of this paper and provides a solid foundation to develop interesting and robust researches on the short-term as exposed in this paper as well as on the long term (perspectives of this work).

The sampling strategy (10 soil subsamples forming representative composite samples at 3 different depths) allows to take into account spatial variability and to analyze the effects of crop residue managements and tillage types at different soil depths. This last point is particularly important as many studies only focused on a thin soil surface layer and have drawn some conclusions (e.g. on soil C storage under no tillage) without considering a potential stratification effect on the whole soil profile.

The laboratory and statistical analyses are globally well described and sound.
I was just wondering if additional data related to i) nitrate measurements and ii) soil bulk densities were available, which could maybe provide complementary results interesting for this paper:

i) In this study, “a stratification of organic matter and nutrients was observed under reduced tillage… for carbon, phosphorus and potassium” (lines 360-361), but no differences in nitrate contents were observed between the different treatments (lines 249-250). However, according to the methods, it should be noted that the effects on nitrate contents were measured on different soil layers and depths (0-30, 30-60 and 60-90 cm) compared to carbon and the other nutrients, which were measured for 0-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm. Are data available for nitrate contents in these latter soil layers? Due to soil stratification under reduced tillage on 0-30 cm, an effect on soil nitrate could maybe be captured if this layer would be more in depth analyzed, even though the great mobility of nitrate and the important amounts of fertilizer used here could maybe prevent the detection of a subtle effect.

ii) It could be also interesting to have measurements of soil bulk densities in order to evaluate the effects of reduced tillage on soil compaction and to analyze the evolution of soil organic carbon stocks for the different treatments.

In addition, it should be explained how were calculated nutrient contents (in kg/ha).
Validity of the findings: The conclusions of this work are well supported by the results obtained, with a robust set of data followed by a rigorous interpretation. As stated by the authors, the results obtained here are relevant for the specific pedoclimatic condition of this study, due to the importance of climate and soil parameters on the investigated processes.
Additional comments: Specific comments:

Title:
I would suggest to add “tillage” in the title. Fertility could be replaced by another term (e.g. chemistry…) as fertility may refer to many other aspects.

Abstract:
Maybe not very stylish to close the abstract with “…” (line 45). Furthermore, the last sentence is perhaps not essential and a little bit long. It could be suggested to finish the previous sentence (line 43) by something like “… whether more consistent changes in the whole agro-ecosystem functioning…” to include more concisely the idea developed in the last sentence.

Introduction:
Line 64: “Hiel et al. (2016)” is not in the reference list.
Line 77: I would suggest to replace “say something about” by “assess”
Line 78: “show” -> “showed”

Methods:
Lines 133-135 refer to residue analyses and line 136 to grain samples, and then, again to residues, line 137. Maybe better to group the sentences related to residues together.
Part 2.4. As explained above, it should be explained here how were calculated nutrient contents (in kg/ha).

Results:
In line 204 are presented results for fababean yields from Table 5. To be consistent within the different parts, this should be included in the next part 3.1.3 relative to crop yields.
Line 223: “crop residue in the soil” -> “crop residue returned to soil”
Line 224: “this was correlated with an increase in the amount of nutrient”, maybe interesting to add statistical criteria for this correlation.
Lines 225-227: I was not able to find the results presented here in the tables.
Lines 259-260: “these treatments showed a slower decrease in P content than deeper in the profile”. This is not clear, according to the figure, there is a higher decrease of P in RT treatments in the upper layer. Please clarify. Legend of the figure in Appendix D: “Phosphore” -> “Phosphorus”

Discussion:
Line 311: “soil fertility”: same comment than for the title, maybe use a more specific term.
Line 314 and Appendix E: I would suggest to comment this result and this figure in the result part.
Lines 320-321: Maybe also add in the references the work of Dimassi et al. (2013 or 2014 in AGEE) in which a similar stratification of soil organic carbon was observed following tillage conversion in a long term experiment.

Conclusion:
Lines 348-349: “was not dramatically impacted…” I would suggest to add “on the short term”.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PREDICTING THE POTENTIAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF THE INVASIVE CYCAD SCALE AULACASPIS YASUMATSUI (HEMIPTERA: DIASPIDIDAE) UNDER DIFFERENT CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Of the most urgent calls among biologist is that for native species protection.  Invasive species are the most damaging of insults to natural diversity, presumably more destructive than land conversion, as the invasives are only just getting started with a new blight or predator being recognized possibly every day, worldwide.  The authors offer new knowledge to project future species distribution of the cycad scale, which is devastating to both horticulture and native cycad species and has made a rapid worldwide assault on cycads.  In the last decade scale has created large swaths of cycad-less cycad forest and the need to develop new control methods is paramount to control of this species, with concerted projection efforts meeting only limited success.  Thus, it is welcome to see modeling efforts identify and designate the most vulnerable flora needed for protection including quarantine, protective surveys, local population education programs to design quick spotting and eradication planning methods and the design of new biological technology to eliminate the pest. However, the manuscript is not ready for acceptance and unfortunately needs to be rejected due to insufficient preparation, as well as improper bioinformatics follow through.
In addition the manuscript is riddled with spelling and grammatical mistakes such that it makes it difficult to judge the quality of work and to determine what the authors intended to convey.

Below are a list of grammatical/spelling/concept clarification mistakes that I noted at the outset but gave up on listing additional problems as they are far too numerous to extract.

 Title
Predicting the potential distributions of the cycad aulacaspis scale Aulacaspis yasumatsui  (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) under climatie change scenarios and the implications for management
-remove first appearance of the word aulacaspis
-climate misspelled
-perhaps add the word, “invasive”

Abstract

The very first sentence of the Abstract contains multiple grammatical errors,
 “Cycads, an ancient group of gymnosperms, that are almost all threatened or endangered
an are now popular landscape plants.”
-It should state, “Cycads, an ancient group of gymnosperms, nearly all threatened or endangered in the wild
are also popular landscape plants.

There is something not right about this sentence.  I have underlined the problematic portion. “A potential risk map of CAS was created by (add by using MaxEnt and using occurrence data under changing climatic conditions.”

“Moreover, this research provide a theoretical reference framework for developing policy for the management and control of this invasive pest.”
-Should be “provides” for proper agreement in the sentence

The model suggested the current invasive risk was mainly constrained
by the annual temperature range (Bio07), mean temperature of coldest quarter (Bio11)
and mean temperature of driest quarter (Bio09).
-The model forumulated through this method suggests that
-Odd to included (Bio7, 11 & 9) in the abstract as it has no meaning to the reader if the abstract is read by itself.

The potential expansions or reductions of distribution ranges were also predicted under different climate change conditions.
-This could be interesting, but which climate change conditions?

Although biotic factor and spread factors were not considered in the current analysis, using climatic
factors to achieve a better understanding of the invasion patterns of this species can help
improve the management of this invasive species and develop policies for its control.
-Again, sentence is rather pithy like the one before it.  Which climatic factors? Why not state the findings in the paper?

Introduction

45-46…Invasive species>,> not only threaten.s> native ecosystems through interspecific competition with
native species>,> but also threaten human-managed systems, such as agriculture, human and animal
health, and forestry (Bardley, Wilcove & Oppenheimer, 2000; Simberloff et al., 2003).
-Is “human health” a human managed system?

48…Considerable evidence has shown that climate change can significantly influence the distribution
of invasive species by affecting key physiological characteristics
-What does that mean to “affect key physiological characteristics”?

50-51 …Understanding the change in potential distribution as a result of
climate change is a critical foundation required to manage and control the introduction of alien
species
-change in potential distribution of???”
-I’m not sure what this sentence is saying?  The presumption is that climate change will exacerbate the spread of invasive species.  What is the foundation referred to in relation to invasive species?

56-57…The oldest cycad fossil record was approximately 265 to 290 million
57 years old (Brenner, Stevenson & Twigg, 2003).
Should state fossil record is (Presuming this fossil still exists)

60…Nevertheless, many cycad species, such as cycad genera, are facing mass extinction due to insect pests
-Should list cycad species as examples.  Not clear what “such as cycad genera” is stating

62-63…The cycad aulacaspis scale (CAS), Aulacaspis yasumatsui Takagi (Hemiptera: Diaspididae), is one of the most serious pest of cycads (Giorgi &Vandenberg, 2012) .
-I would argue that this is the most serious pest of cycad

64-65…Studies have suggested that this highly invasive species poses a threat to costly ornamental plants, and this pest not only damages wild cycad populations but also infectes the plants in conservation areas around the world
-I think the point here is that much of the destruction of native habitat has occurred through introductions from horticultural plants
-infects

71 subsequently
90 that appear as if covered in awhite crust
93 At present, at least 8 genera from 3 different families cycads

94-95 …There is an urgent need to control and manage this pest due to its spread rapidly and wide host range among cycads.
rapid spread.

99-101…Therefore, a alternative method is to enforce strict quarantine measures in countries where CAS has not yet beeb introduced by prohibiting importation of cycad plants from infested countries.
-an alternative
-not yet been
-is by prohibiting

102-103 Identifying the current and future potential distribution range is very important for early monitoring, formulating the quarantine measures and managing CAS
-This sentence is choppy and missing parallel phrase structure for smoother reading.

Etc.
Experimental design: Beyond the chronic grammatical nuisances, the work itself is generalistic about the subject without reference to confirmatory data that would help validate the model.
For example, the authors argue that temperature is the most significant environmental factor regulating distribution, but this may not be particularly useful considering that cycads are a pan tropical and subtropical species so one would expect most cycad habitat to be suitable as scale habitat, unless the authors can do a better job clarifying this.  A correlation between cycad temperature survival zones would be extremely helpful.  The authors suggest that the survivability cutoff for the cycad scale is 15C.  However, if one considers the low temperature of the initial site of scale invasion that occurred in North America, for example, in Southern Florida, Miami, where the temperature falls to 10C, typically three times a year, the scale invasion has proceeded unabated. The authors thus may want to consider calibrating their analysis to more accurately reflect actual temperature outcomes. If the authors were inferring that the mean temperature cut off is 15C then this should be clarified.
Another important omission is that the authors do not address the vulnerability among the two different cycad subgroups.  There is no effort to distinguish or compare probably survivability outcomes between New vs. Old World cycads.  Cycad scale is more damaging to the Cycadales when compared to the Zamiales and this distinction could affect scale range sensitivity.
Validity of the findings: In a glaring error, both Figures 1 and 2 are not labeled as the species of study, Aulacaspis yasumatsui, the cycad scale, but instead, Phenacoccus solenopsis, the cotton mealy bug. So, the reviewer is left to wonder whether the data presented comes from a concurrent project on a different species.  Either way, this mistake, among the other listed problems makes this work unsuitable for publication.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PREDICTING THE POTENTIAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF THE INVASIVE CYCAD SCALE AULACASPIS YASUMATSUI (HEMIPTERA: DIASPIDIDAE) UNDER DIFFERENT CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript should be checked for minor grammatical errors.
I suggest to move Figs. 5-8 to supplementary material.
Check if abstract complies with PeerJ standards.
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: Please make clear in the introduction and conclusions that your model is built to predict the potential distribution range of CAS, but it doesn’t take into account the distribution of hosts and insect’s biology (e.g. relationship with temperature).
Additional comments: L29. Avoid “CAS” in the abstract.
L32. Delete “by MaxEnt and”
L45-46. “such as agriculture, forestry, human and animal health”
L56-57. Please delete.
L57-59. It seems contradictory with the following sentence. Please revise.
L71. “Cycas revoluta”.
L121. You mean “single point”?
L130-131. This statement can be misinterpreted. Please, rephrase.
L137-138. Does this sentence belong to the following paragraph?
L142-145 and Tab.1. Please make clear that these are coded by WorldClim
L154. Break into two sentences.
L167. “highest performing methods” is not clear.
L173-176. It is not clear, please rephrase.
L182. Area Under Curve?
L187-189. “from -1 to +1” and I think it is “where 1 indicates …”


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PREDICTING THE POTENTIAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF THE INVASIVE CYCAD SCALE AULACASPIS YASUMATSUI (HEMIPTERA: DIASPIDIDAE) UNDER DIFFERENT CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript entitled “Predicting the potential distributions of the cycad aulacaspis scale Aulacaspis yasumatsui (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) under climate change scenarios and the implications for management” generally conforms to PeerJ standards in terms of formatting norms, figure quality and raw data availability. However, there are several aspects of the manuscript that require improvement, including its content, language and presentation. I highlight some of these aspects in detail below:

Firstly, certain passages of the introduction are too general or broad and would benefit from clarification or further detail. For example, line 48 could be improved by stating which physiological characteristics you are referring to. Also, lines 57-61 are somewhat contradictory – you first say cycads are resistant to pests, but then highlight they are endangered mostly due to pest species. A few other sections to re-evaluate include passages of the discussion (see below).

Second, some lines lack a solid reference to support the statement made. Examples include lines 79-80 and 367-369. On the other hand, some references are incorrectly used. For example, Hijmans et al. 2005 is cites as a reference to the fact that observations are often concentrated in highly accessible or populated areas. While this is true, Hijmans et al. (2005) refer to meteorological observations and not species observations. Several more adequate references exist for this purpose, such as Kadmon et al. 2004. Other passages where references are inadequately cited are highlighted below.

Thirdly, the English language should be improved to ensure that an international audience can clearly understand your text. Some examples where the language could be improved include the abstract and lines 65, 68, 86, 95, 100-101, 105, 119, etc. These lines contain either spelling mistakes or passages that have awkward wording and would benefit from rephrasing. Also, there is a lack of careful formatting throughout the manuscript (double or trailing spaces, types, etc.) and I would encourage the authors to carry out a thorough revision of the manuscript. On top of this, authors also should also carefully revise the technical terminology they use throughout the manuscript. For example, the authors clearly mention that “the current and future potential distributions of CAS were estimated using MaxEnt software based on available occurrence data” (which points towards a species distribution modelling mindset) but they then refer to ecological niche modelling in the discussion (lines 350-354). Reviewing the literature on the subject, and on the emphasis of each approach might help the authors to tackle some of the limitation of this study (for further details on limitations, see below). I would encourage them to check the manuscripts by Warren (2012, 2013), McInery & Etienne (2013) and references therein for further guidance.
Experimental design: The research question is clearly outlined and within the scope of the journal. Its meaningfulness arises from the importance of this invasive pest species as clearly outlined by the authors in the introduction. However, some of the methodological decisions raise some serious questions regarding the robustness of the study and some passages need to be more clearly presented to allow readers a full assessment of the study. I highlight some of the key limitations in more detail below.

Firstly, variable selection is limited to climatic variables and is badly justified (lines 128-131). The authors use two references to justify this selection: one is the authors’ own study (Wei et al. 2017) and the second is Guisan et al. 2013. Interestingly, this last reference is a manuscript that highlights the need to carefully consider species distribution model development for conservation purposes, and emphasizes how factors beyond climate can generate uncertainty in model outcomes. For example, Table 1 of said manuscript emphasizes that “Biotic interactions may play a strong role in determining environmental suitability in novel habitats” when assessing biological invasions. While it is true that topography may not play such an important role in this case, as the authors argue, there is not much justification why other factors such as dispersal limitation (e.g. Sullivan et al. 2012) or biotic interactions as argued by Guisan and colleagues. To be honest, the authors recognize this fact in the discussion (lines 338-343) so I am surprised that a stronger justification for including only climatic variables is provided in the methods. I would encourage the authors to revise this section and provide a better justification for only considering climatic factors for modelling purposes – the known relationship between temperature and CAS development could serve this purpose.

Second, the climatic variables selected for modelling purposes are highly correlated. While the authors recognize that collinearity among predictor variables can affect modelling outcomes, highly correlated variables (i.e. |r|>0.7) were still included in the models. Bio2 and Bio10 for example have r=0.799! I would encourage the authors to revisit their choice of predictor variables or to consider a set of uncorrelated variables representing climate (e.g. from a PCA) for modelling.

Thirdly, only one GCM was selected for the study even though uncertainty associated with climatic model predictions is known to be relevant – Guisan et al. (2013), who the authors cited, highlight this clearly. Providing an account of the uncertainty associated with different future scenarios and climatic models would allow a more nuanced discussion of the results obtained, which will certainly be of more use to decision-makers.

Finally, the modelling procedure requires additional details and justification to be assessed adequately. On the one hand, some aspects of the study are poorly described. For example, authors state that “To define the background area, the minimum convex polygon were implemented by ArcGIS 10.1 (ESRI, Redlands, CA, USA).”. But how were these polygons implemented? Were they defined within each region (i.e. North America, Africa, Asia, etc.) or globally? Obviously, either approach will result in greatly different MCPs for the selection of background points. Also, were background points then sample randomly or through a stratified approach? All of these aspects are relevant to assess the study and allow reproduction of the study. On the other hand, some decisions are poorly justified. For example, the authors stated that default features were used for modelling purposes, but decisions regarding the allowed model complexity can have great impacts on final modelling outcomes. I would encourage the authors to read the paper by Merow et al. (2014) which discusses these issues in details, to consider the limitations and objectives of their own study (sample size and bias, spatial extent, extrapolation vs. interpolation) and to provide a more adequate justification for their modelling decisions.
Validity of the findings: The general findings of the study are in agreement with the results presented, but these are hindered by some of the methodological issues raised above. This ultimately reflects on the discussion provided, and there are two sections where that is particularly evident.

In the first section, the authors state that “The occurrence of unsuitable areas on the current distribution map of A. yasumatsui suggests that these areas were constrainted by inappropriate ecological conditions as a result of natural enemies, ecological or geographical barriers to spread and local adaption” (lines 296-298). These lines seem to imply that discrepancies between the ‘known’ distribution of the species exist and that they may be driven by the factors mentioned. Interestingly, many of these factors are of utmost importance to modelling exercises but were not considered in this study. Hence, it seems plausible that discrepancies may be driven by an over-simplistic modelling approach or simply by biases in the dataset used for model calibration – the fact that more locations are known outside than inside the species natural range suggests this. Ultimately, the current justification seems rather simplistic and it would be positive if the authors could provide a much more nuanced discussion on the observed differences and why they may be arising.

In the second, the authors state that “the lowest temperature of 15℃ proved to be unsuitable for this insect, as indicated by the high mortality observed in laboratory research (Teaaro 2009)” (lines 324-326). A few lines later (329-331), they mention that “Our model suggested an increase in the population of this pest with an annual temperature range of 1-8 ℃and a mean temperature of 14-20 ℃ in the coldest quarter”. A detailed look at Figure 3 actually shows that the peak suitability identified by the model regarding the mean temperature of the coldest quarter is around 15ºC, which proved to be unsuitable for the insects in the laboratory. Hence, model results seem to be in clear disagreement with the known ecology of the species and suggests one of two things: either other factors are allowing the species to settle in unsuitable conditions, or the models are not actually representing the climatic tolerance of the species. In either case, a much more detailed and nuanced discussion is necessary here to provide insights on why this may be. My experience, from looking at model response curves, suggests that models may be overfitting the data and with such a limited and biased dataset, this can be an issue.

Having both of these aspects in mind, I would encourage the authors to critically re-evaluate their study and to provide a better discussion of potential limitations and disagreements between their results and existing knowledge of the species’ ecology. This will be of great help for any interested readers, particularly if results are to inform policy and monitoring as the authors emphasize.
Additional comments: I provide here the full details to some of the references mentioned above:
Kadmon, R., Farber, O. & Danin, A. (2004) Effect of road-side bias on the accuracy of predictive maps produced by bioclimatic models. Ecological Applications, 14, 401–413.
McInerny, G. J., & Etienne, R. S. (2013). ‘Niche’or ‘distribution’modelling? A response to Warren. Trends in ecology & evolution, 28, 191-192.
Sullivan, M. J. P., Davies, R. G., Reino, L. & Franco, A. M. A. (2012), Using dispersal information to model the species–environment relationship of spreading non-native species. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 3, 870–879.
Warren, D. L. (2012). In defense of ‘niche modeling’. Trends in ecology & evolution, 27, 497-500.
Warren, D. L. (2013). Niche modeling’: that uncomfortable sensation means it's working. A reply to McInerny and Etienne. Trends in ecology & evolution, 28, 193-194.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PREDICTING THE POTENTIAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF THE INVASIVE CYCAD SCALE AULACASPIS YASUMATSUI (HEMIPTERA: DIASPIDIDAE) UNDER DIFFERENT CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: English must be checked by a native speaker or a professional editing service.
Experimental design: I think you can use the information reported here:

Cave, R. D., Sciacchetano, C., & Diaz, R. (2009). Temperature-dependent development of the cycad aulacaspis scale, Aulacaspis yasumatsui (Hemiptera: Diaspididae). Florida Entomologist, 92(4), 578-581.

to improve the model and the discussions about the validity of the model.
Validity of the findings: No comment.
Additional comments: L37. Report the year.
L429. There is no need to repeat "Cycad aulacaspis scale"
Table  1. Improve the caption, explaining what the acronyms on the first row mean.
Figure 1. Improve the caption, explaining what the map colors mean (grey, yellow, ...)
Figure 2. Use a thicker line for average, and a lighter blue for SD band.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PREDICTING THE POTENTIAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF THE INVASIVE CYCAD SCALE AULACASPIS YASUMATSUI (HEMIPTERA: DIASPIDIDAE) UNDER DIFFERENT CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The revised version of the manuscript entitled “Predicting the potential distributions of the cycad aulacaspis scale Aulacaspis yasumatsui (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) under climate change scenarios and the implications for management”, like the original submission, conforms to PeerJ standards in terms of formatting norms, figure quality and raw data availability. I acknowledge the efforts made by the authors in terms of addressing reviewer’s comments and as a result, some aspects of the manuscript have clearly improved, including language and presentation. Nevertheless, some typos and grammatical errors remain in the manuscript. For example, in line 101 “Cycas.taitungensis” should read “Cycas taitungensis”. Similar issues occur with references; in line 121, Jimenez-valverde et al., 2011 should read Jimenez-Valverde et al., 2011 and in the full reference provided at the end of the manuscript, Lobo should also be capitalized. A thorough and careful revision of the text should be carried out by the authors to improve these aspects.
Experimental design: As part of the efforts made by the authors to consider and include reviewer’s suggestions, some methodological aspects of the manuscript were also improved. For example, the evaluation of model parameters and features was an important and welcome addition. Still, while the authors state that the regularization parameter was also evaluated, there is no evidence of how this was carried out and which values were finally selected. Absence of this information prevents a deeper assessment of the revised model by readers and reviewers, and further details should be provided.
On the other hand, some of the changes carried out by the authors raise serious questions regarding their understanding of the methodology and in the choice of modelling decisions. One of the issues pertains to the choice of variables; the authors now state that they performed a principal component analysis (PCA) to remove highly correlated variables (r≤∣0.8∣). However, upon inspection of Table S3, it is evident that the variables selected are actually highly correlated between them, as the authors included in the study those variables that relate most to each PCA axis. For example, it is easy to understand that variables representing precipitation of the driest month (Bio14) and precipitation of the driest quarter (Bio17) will be highly correlated as they represent essentially the same climatic reality. PCA analysis is often used in species distribution modelling due to the fact that the resulting axis are orthogonal and thus represent different dimensions of the dataset. Hence, either the authors use the PCA to transform their environmental variables in this manner, or I would advise for using more standard correlation analyses to inspect which variables to keep.
Another aspect that raises serious concerns is the inclusion of human footprint in the analysis. Firstly, the inclusion of both topography and human footprint in the models remain unjustified, as I highlighted in my previous revision. My initial comment was not in criticising the exclusion of such variables, rather it was arguing that a strong justification for the environmental variables selected in the model effort is needed as it is well known that models based on variables known to affect the species distribution perform better than models using randomly selected environmental factors (see for example Synes, N. W., & Osborne, P. E. (2011). Choice of predictor variables as a source of uncertainty in continental-scale species distribution modelling under climate change. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 20(6), 904-914. doi:10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00635.x). Secondly, even though human footprint can be an important factor in the ecology of invasive species, it also tends to be highly correlated with the distribution of observations available for modelling purposes. Hence, it should be no surprise that the model identifies this variable as the most explanatory driver of the species distribution – mostly because it affects the distribution of observations and not necessarily because of its ecological relevance. If the authors choose to include this variable in their models, they must also account for data prevalence and distribution across the world (see for example Kramer‐Schadt, Stephanie, et al. "The importance of correcting for sampling bias in MaxEnt species distribution models." Diversity and Distributions 19.11 (2013): 1366-1379, although many other relevant references are available).
Ultimately, I do not think the model present is fit for purpose (considering the objectives proposed) and would encourage the authors to once again revise their objectives and methodological decisions.
Validity of the findings: Bearing in mind the above comments regarding the methodology, I do not believe the findings are in line with the proposed objectives of the study and would encourage the authors to once again critically evaluate their study. A thorough re-assessment of modelling decisions and a justification for their choices should be provided.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PREDICTING THE POTENTIAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF THE INVASIVE CYCAD SCALE AULACASPIS YASUMATSUI (HEMIPTERA: DIASPIDIDAE) UNDER DIFFERENT CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Most of the aspects raised in the last round of review have now been addressed and as a result the manuscript has somewhat improved.
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: A few typos and unclear statements remain and should be addressed accordingly before the manuscript is acceptable for publication. Examples of typos and or unclear statements feature in lines 42-45, 307-308, 329 and 403, among others. I strongly recommend that the authors carry out a detailed review of the manuscript to avoid such isses.