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: HEAVIER- AND LIGHTER-LOAD ISOLATED LUMBAR EXTENSION RESISTANCE TRAINING PRODUCE SIMILAR STRENGTH INCREASES, BUT DIFFERENT PERCEPTUAL RESPONSES, IN HEALTHY MALES AND FEMALES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: NA
Experimental design: NA
Validity of the findings: NA
Additional comments: Excellent job addressing my comments. The paper reads much better now. Congratulations.

A few additional points:

L.47 - consider adding some raw values or CIs in addition to the p value.

L. 263 - The study by Behm does not suggest this as no differences in muscle activation were observed between HL and LL. However, the 20RM did lead to greater peripheral fatigue. Consider modifying the part about central activation.

Table 2 - I think you need to change the second column from pre- to post-intervention.

Concerning the the sample size issue, I see where you are coming from and mostly agree but think you still need to mention something about it in the text. The fact that you didn't conduct a power-analysis is not a reason not to discuss, justify and defend your decisions in the text as you did in your response to me. In my opinion is it important to include the points to brought up in the text and acknowledge the possibility of the study being under-powered.


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: HEAVIER- AND LIGHTER-LOAD ISOLATED LUMBAR EXTENSION RESISTANCE TRAINING PRODUCE SIMILAR STRENGTH INCREASES, BUT DIFFERENT PERCEPTUAL RESPONSES, IN HEALTHY MALES AND FEMALES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: See below
Experimental design: See below
Validity of the findings: See below
Additional comments: The authors have revised this manuscript in great detail, and have sufficiently addressed the majority of my concerns. There are only a few further points of clarification:
1. I appreciate the detail now used around the anchoring of your RPE scales. This reads very well. My only comment is around the use of the superscript numerals to denote reference to the footnotes. These superscripts are not distinguishable from the reference citations. Can they be presented in another way?
2. Footnote 2 reads "Inclusion criteria required participants to self-rate themselves...." This should be either "rate themselves" or "self-rate".
3. My previous comment about the PARQ was only that if it was the PARQ published by CSEP, it should be referenced as such. If it is not, perhaps indicate it is a "customized screening form for physical activity readiness" or something like that to avoid confusion with the published version.
4. Column 3 in Table 2 is labelled pre-intervention, but I believe this should be post-intervention. Please check.

Once again, I would like to commend the authors on a highly relevant study, which has now substantially improved.


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: HEAVIER- AND LIGHTER-LOAD ISOLATED LUMBAR EXTENSION RESISTANCE TRAINING PRODUCE SIMILAR STRENGTH INCREASES, BUT DIFFERENT PERCEPTUAL RESPONSES, IN HEALTHY MALES AND FEMALES
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: N/A
Experimental design: N/A
Validity of the findings: N/A
Additional comments: This manuscript is acceptable for publication.


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: CLASSIFICATION OF THE GLIOMA GRADING USING RADIOMICS ANALYSIS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: - Clear and unambiguous, professional English used throughout.
OK

- Literature references, sufficient field background/context provided.
No, there is much more literature in survival prediction of glioma. Also the authors touch upon the literature beyond grading and survival prediction, but they do not mention anything about the field of radiogenomics, which is one of the most significant directions of our field.

- Professional article structure, figs, tables. Raw data shared.
OK

- Self-contained with relevant results to hypotheses.
Yes
Experimental design: - Original primary research within Aims and Scope of the journal.
Yes

Research question well defined, relevant & meaningful. It is stated how research fills an identified knowledge gap.
- Yes

Rigorous investigation performed to a high technical & ethical standard.
- No, there are a lot of missing (or insufficiently described) information.

Methods described with sufficient detail & information to replicate.
- No, there are a lot of missing (or insufficiently described) information.
Validity of the findings: - Impact and novelty not assessed. Negative/inconclusive results accepted. Meaningful replication encouraged where rationale & benefit to literature is clearly stated.
OK

- Data is robust, statistically sound, & controlled.
There are missing (or insufficiently described) information.

- Conclusion are well stated, linked to original research question & limited to supporting results.
Yes
Additional comments: This is an interesting manuscript, but a lot of information is missing, or insufficiently described. Before I can support its publication, the following points should be addressed

-	Introduction, L40: Glioma grading is not defined purely based on histology any more. WHO has a revision for the classification of CNS tumors in 2016.

-	Materials and Methods, L82: Looking into the BraTS 2017 website (https://www.med.upenn.edu/sbia/brats2017/data.html), it seems that the BraTS 2017 dataset has 4 citations that should be cited, whereas the authors include only 2 of them. All 4 citations should be cited in the paper.

-	Materials and Methods, L84: According to the TCIA website, the TCIA-GBM and TCIA-LGG have one data citation each that the authors have not included I their manuscript. I include them below for the convenience of the authors. These can also be found through the official TCIA website.
TCIA-GBM Data Citation: Scarpace, L., et al. (2016). Radiology Data from The Cancer Genome Atlas Glioblastoma Multiforme [TCGA-GBM] collection. The Cancer Imaging Archive. http://doi.org/10.7937/K9/TCIA.2016.RNYFUYE9
TCIA-LGG Data Citation: Pedano, N., et al. (2016). Radiology Data from The Cancer Genome Atlas Low Grade Glioma [TCGA-LGG] collection. The Cancer Imaging Archive. http://doi.org/10.7937/K9/TCIA.2016.L4LTD3TK

-	Materials and Methods, L87: According to the BraTS 2017 documentation the HGG cohort includes only glioblastoma tumors. The authors correct their statement.

-	Materials and Methods, L110: Are these features extracted from the 3D volume, or in 2D from the slice with the largest expansion of the tumor?

-	Materials and Methods, L115: A lot of details are missing both from the main paper and the supplementary material for the feature extraction to be reproducible. The authors should clarify the parameterization for each feature family. For example, what was the quantization method used to extract the GLCM features? How many bins were selected? How many offsets, directions were used for GLCM? How the different offsets were combined? by weighted average, or just a combination?

-	Materials and Methods, L124: Has the z-scoring happened for each feature across subjects, or across features for each subject?

-	Materials and Methods, L143: This “5D feature space” was not mentioned before. The authors should elaborate how it is defined. How was the SVM trained did the authors cross-validate for “c” and “g” parameters?

-	Materials and Methods: The authors do not discuss at all about their divided cohort. Is the 5-fold created proportionally to the number of subjects of each class (high grade vs low grade)? What is the ratio of each class in relation to the training vs testing dataset? What is the ratio of overall subjects between the training and the testing datasets?

-	Materials and Methods: Since the authors already have results from the 3 algorithms they applied, it would be very interesting to assess the classification performance of an ensemble across the 3 methods.

-	Discussion, L214:: The authors should elaborate and clarify on how (and why) the SVM-RFE with LOOCV might lead to overfitting.

-	Table 1 seems to be taken from the Bakas, et al. 2017 Sci Data paper. This should be mentioned in the caption of the table.


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: CLASSIFICATION OF THE GLIOMA GRADING USING RADIOMICS ANALYSIS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: It was a pleasure to review the manuscript titled "Classification of the glioma grading using radiomics analysis". The authors focus on applying various machine learning classification algorithms to a specific problem such as the classification of grading in gliomal brain tumours. The problem statement has been clearly defined.

However, the methods and results sections would be more helpful to prospective readers if a few things can be clarified or added.
Experimental design: Methods:
1. There is evidently a class imbalance present in the cohort, with 210 HGG cases and only 75 LGGs. Has this been addressed or if the authors did not deem this to be a significant issue, can they explain why?
2. Were there any other methods employed to reduce model overfitting like elasticnet regression or lasso? The relatively high AUCs suggest overfitting.
3. The 'Tumour regions of interest' is not clear in explaining why the regions were combined. Also, the second column in Figure 2 that depicts radiomics feature extraction needs more explanation as in it's current state, the figure is not able to provide a clear understanding of the methodology.
4. The reason behind normalizing features to z-scores should be explained.
5. Is there a reason for selecting the 3 classifiers mentioned in the article? Additionally, the relative merits and demerits of each of those classification algorithms can be mentioned in the article, or in the least a reference(s) should be provided.
6. Is there a reason for selecting only the top 5 features from training?
Validity of the findings: Results:
7. All the tables are titled Table 1.
8. Figure 2 warrants more explanation.
9. The supplemental information provides useful information regarding the variables. Some representative examples of the results of morphological features can be included for completeness.
10. The robustness of the data cannot be commented upon, since it comes from an external source.
11. The conclusions are well explained and address the original research question stated at the beginning of the article.
Additional comments: Overall, this is a well-written paper and with the additions suggested above, can be a good reference for future researchers interetsed in exploring machine learning methodologies in the computer aided diagnosis and digital pathology domains.


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: CLASSIFICATION OF THE GLIOMA GRADING USING RADIOMICS ANALYSIS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Clear and unambiguous, professional English used throughout.
ok

Literature references, sufficient field background/context provided.
ok

Professional article structure, figs, tables. Raw data shared.
ok - Please note that the authors should include the "response Table 1" into the main body of the manuscript.

Self-contained with relevant results to hypotheses.
ok
Experimental design: Original primary research within Aims and Scope of the journal.
ok

Research question well defined, relevant & meaningful. It is stated how research fills an identified knowledge gap.
ok

Rigorous investigation performed to a high technical & ethical standard.
ok

Methods described with sufficient detail & information to replicate.
ok
Validity of the findings: Impact and novelty not assessed. Negative/inconclusive results accepted. Meaningful replication encouraged where rationale & benefit to literature is clearly stated.
ok

Data is robust, statistically sound, & controlled.
ok

Conclusion are well stated, linked to original research question & limited to supporting results.
ok

Speculation is welcome, but should be identified as such.
ok
Additional comments: The authors have sufficiently addressed my comments.

My only minor suggestion to the authors would be to include the "Response Table 1" ("Response 15") in the main body of their manuscript.


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: CLASSIFICATION OF THE GLIOMA GRADING USING RADIOMICS ANALYSIS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This is a review for a revised version of the manuscript. The newer version meets expected standards.
Experimental design: The changes that were suggested in the original review have been incorporated satisfactorily. Commendations to the authors for performing these further investigations that will definitely help future readers.
Validity of the findings: The authors have done a thorough job of carrying out experiments to address some of the questions from the original review. The results, especially the graphic representations that I had requested for, make the paper more understandable and interpretable.
Additional comments: Thank you for carrying out the changes as requested previously.


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: A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK: MESOZOIC ORIGIN OF PARASITISM IN STREPSIPTERA REVEALED BY FIRST DEFINITE CRETACEOUS PRIMARY LARVA (INSECTA)
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The study is thorough and generally the conclusions are appropriate.  There are numerous minor edits needed in sentence structure and grammar.  For example on line 62 and 63 the last word “yet” should be removed.  This is just an example of many minor changes needed to improve the writing of the paper.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: •	There is little doubt that this specimen constitutes a strepsipteran primary larvae and therefore the interpretation of this specimen is important to science.
•	It is valuable that the authors discuss and correct the use of larval terms for the first instar larvae of Strepsiptera.  The terms planidium and triungulin are obviously not appropriate for Strepsiptera larva but have been repeatedly used incorrectly.
•	In lines 155-156, there is no need to note that wings or wing buds are missing.  No evidence of these would be expected in a strepsipteran larvae or any larvae that might be mistaken for this order, such as Meloidae, Rhipiphoridae, …
•	The term hatching in line 244 in not appropriate.  The larvae emerge from the female after hatching internally from an egg.  The term in this sentence should be changed to emerging.
•	In more than one place in the manuscript it is suggested that there must be a large number of primary larvae produced by each female but this appears to be speculation and if included should be identified as such.  Based on knowledge of current strepsipterans, this could be true but the authors should not rely so heavily on this interpretation as fact.  The reality is that we know nothing of the natural history of these larvae or their numbers from this geological age.  Unless the unlikely event of the discovery of a gravid female of this age it may always be speculation as to the relative number of offspring.  Likewise, lines 243-246 are stated as fact but is speculation for the species covered in this study.
Additional comments: This is a valuable paper that appears to only need minor changes.  My suggestions are offered to try to improve an already generally good paper.


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: A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK: MESOZOIC ORIGIN OF PARASITISM IN STREPSIPTERA REVEALED BY FIRST DEFINITE CRETACEOUS PRIMARY LARVA (INSECTA)
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript fully meets the standards and is within the scope of the journal. It provides sufficient backround and introduction to place the work into the broader field of knowledge.The text is is written in professional, unambiguous language, so an international audience can clearly understand. The sources are adequately and appropriately cited. Very important part of manuscript are the figures, which are well described, in a high quality and sufficient resolution (as much as possible). The text is organized into coherent subsections.
The results are definitely ‘self-contained’, while results are relevant to the hypothesis.
Experimental design: It is clearly stated how research fills and identified knowledge gap. The investigation was conducted to very high technical standard, the methods are comprehensive and described sufficiently to be reproducible.
Validity of the findings: Conclusion are limited to supporting results and are appropriately stated. Speculations are identified as such.
Additional comments: According to my opinion, there are a few notes that need more details or to be slightly modified, usually to ensure that an audience can clearly understand the text. I cannot find any serious weakness.

Line 19: Mesozoic origin – it could be „at least“ the Mesozoic origin
Line 21: „one of the most“ or the most?
Line 42: Bahiaxenidae probably also leave their host – is it supported by references?
Line 50: It is not clear, whether labrum is completly missing, or it is „largely reduced“ (written in Lines 163-166) / or fused with other mouthparts – „lacking separate labrum“ (Lines 204, 205), so I would prefer "not present as separate element".
Line 56: „enable the minute larvae to jump very efficiently“ – not true for the family Stylopidae, so I would kindly suggest "for the most" of families"
Line 84: I am not familiar with an abbreviation „s.b.“
Line 85-87: Is the „planidium“ always „legless“? Aren’t also first instar larvae of Meloidae (with legs) reffered as „planidium“? This term is derived from the Greek word, which should mean „wanderer“, so I assume the term is not such a problem in case of Strepsiptera.
Lines 87-94: Although I agree with neutral term „primary larva“ for first instars of Strepsiptera, term „triungulinid“ (= triungulin-like) also would not be such a problem for case of Strepsiptera, because it is not the same as „triungulin“ (without -id).
Line 101: I would suggest to add the final years again – "endoparasitism is extended back by ca. 50 milion years to minimum age of ca. 100 mya"
Line 106: Better to use mya consistantly than „Ma“
Line 163: (st in Figs. 1A, B, 3A)
Line 187: Sternites IV-VI with two setae, not Sternites III-IV
Line 197: Mengenilla chobauti
Line 251: Typo (missing spacebar) „body, a …“
Line 357: Typo (missing spacebar) „plate, mx…“

After correcting minor ambiguities, I am very pleased to suggest the manuscript to be accepted for the journal.


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: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE VALIDITY OF PATIENT DERIVED XENOGRAFT (PDX) MODELS: THE IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH AND PERSONALISED MEDICINE
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: a.	The report is written in very clear English and is easy to read and well-explained
b.	The literature cited is correct and at sufficient depth.
c.	The article is well structured with appropriate use of Tables and Figures and all the raw data has been shared.
i.	Modification 1: Could Figure 2 and 3 have different titles in the Figure legends to more easily discern the difference between them?
ii.	Modification 2: Figure 4 does not appear to be described in the text of the results
Experimental design: a.	The research question was well-defined and clearly stated
b.	Use of appropriate standards was carried out or described in detail why they were not appropriate
c.	The use of two independent assessors followed by resolving any discrepancies by consensus is appropriate
i.	Modification 1: Figure 1 showing the PRISMA flow diagram has been uploaded incorrectly and appears to be from the authors previous paper (Collins, Ross and Lang 2017)
ii.	Modification 2: The authors claim only one paper stated it followed the ARRIVE guidelines (results line 152 and discussion line 298).  However, authors may well adhere to reporting their experiments in accordance with the ARRIVE guidelines without necessarily stating they are.  Have the authors checked whether each paper actually did report their methods following the ARRIVE guidelines?
Validity of the findings: a.	The data is robust and detailed.  There are no methods employed to determine whether there are any statistically differences in level of concern between model type (breast, colon, lung and prostate) but this may not be appropriate in this setting.
b.	The conclusions are well-stated and clearly explained.
c.	The suggestions for improvement in validating and describing PDX models are detailed and give much food for thought researchers in the field of PDX generation
Additional comments: This paper aimed to systematically review generation of PDX models in breast, colon, lung and prostate cancer.  They reported on the number of these papers that correctly assessed whether they had generated an appropriate PDX and crucially critiqued the models validity in a non-biased, systematic method.  In general, this is an important paper for the PDX community to read due to its rigour and provides a salutary lesson in reporting and validation.  I would recommend acceptance to publish with the modifications described above.


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: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE VALIDITY OF PATIENT DERIVED XENOGRAFT (PDX) MODELS: THE IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH AND PERSONALISED MEDICINE
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: In general, this paper is well written and structured

The numbers between the text and the flow-chart do not seem to match. For instance, the flow chart reports 34 included studies, while the texts suggests 110 (line 127)
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: Many studies were excluded after full-text reads. The reasons for exclusion are only shortly described. I encourage the authors to define clearly the exclusion reasons and give some practical examples (with literature reference) for some of the more common excluded types (e.g. “no asymmetric inheritance”, “no relevant organelle”, “wrong population”)
Additional comments: The authors should clarify what they mean with “model validation”. Apparently, publications without validation experiments were excluded for the review.  I believe it is crucial that the authors describe what counts as “model validation” and what doesn’t.

Related to the comment above, I have no clue what the authors mean with “none of the studies clearly validated their models” (line 154-155).

It is unclear from this text what their newly created model validity tool (2017) is actually doing and how it was developed. I urge the authors to summarize that here in the current manuscript.

The authors report an important lack of information on one or more validation questions (line 159). It would be helpful if the authors could provide a frequency table with these questions and the times it couldn’t be answered.


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: CHARACTERIZATION OF VAGINAL MICROBIOTA IN THAI WOMEN
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: -Mainly professional English, a few areas need some attention.
-Additional references should be provided for certain statements, see General Comments
-Article well structured, and self-contained
Experimental design: -Yes, original research
-Research question relatively well defined, and fills a gap
-Methods and Analysis adequately described and performed.
Validity of the findings: -Novel findings, of interest to those in the field
-N is small
-Conclusions seem appropriate, however more speculative language is needed when referring to 'health' of the VMB (intro and discussion), see General Comments.
Additional comments: The manuscript entitled “Characterization of vaginal microbiota in normal Thai women” by Dr. Sirichoat et al., is a cross-sectional study describing the vaginal microbiota in Thai women (N=25), as there are no reports of the VMB in this ethnicity. Further, the vaginal microbiota have been found to vary by ethnicity, thus a study describing an unreported group is scientifically interesting. At present, this reviewer feels that the manuscript is suitable for publication in the PeerJ following minor revisions.

Minor comments:
-Consider removing the word ‘normal’ from the title… What is normal?
-The sample size is small and varied (ie. menstrual cycle stage not consistent, +/- contraceptive use, female sterilization included, etc.). It would be very interesting to add to this dataset and compare say women without female sterilization to those with. Consider adding additional samples, or creating groups that can be compared in future studies (ie. proliferative phase vs. secretory phase).
-In abstract, perhaps use ‘Conclusions’ rather than ‘Discussion’
-Abstract, discussion, change ‘are the’ to ‘is’
-Intro, line 46, change ‘especially’ to ‘in particular it’
-Add detail to Intro regarding how the VMB varies by ethinicy.
-Add additional references to lines 48-51.
 -Be cautious in using the term ‘healthy’ (line 51). Just because a VMB is diverse does not necessarily appear to mean it is unhealthy (40% of Black women have diverse VMB and are asymptomatic… they are ‘healthy’).
-gasseri is incorrect in line 52.
-Most of the work on the effect of lactobacilli inhibiting pathoges has been done in vitro, please make this clearer (line 53-55).
- Change to ‘rRNA gene sequencing’ throughout manuscript
-Change strictly to ‘strict’ (line 63)
-Add references to line 62-66, BV
-NGS studies in Canadian and American women are available, please add the references to line 67
-Methods: More thorough description of inclusion/exclusion. Ie. ‘use of vaginal douche in the past’… how long?
-Results: change heading to ‘Participant Characteristics’
-Is 90% relative abundance of Lactobacillus the typical cut-point used in the literature? This reviewer typically sees >50%
-Add p value for trend in line 215.
-Statements about transition of VMB (ie line 252), this implies that all the iners dominant women in the study are abnormal… but perhaps this is ‘normal’ for Thai women. Please add a statement to address.


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: CHARACTERIZATION OF VAGINAL MICROBIOTA IN THAI WOMEN
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: There is insufficient methodological detail to replicate this analysis.

Raw sequencing data, and perhaps more importantly, OTU representatives (to allow readers to re-classify by other methods), do not appear to be provided.
Experimental design: My most significant concerns with this study are methodological:

- The software used for classification was the "16S Metagenomics workflow module" of software provided by Life Technologies. I'm guessing that this a description of the product (from a google search): https://www.thermofisher.com/content/dam/LifeTech/Documents/PDFs/Ion-16S-Metagenomics-Kit-Software-Application-Note.pdf. This method may in fact perform well in comparison to other methods, but because one of the implicit goals of the project was to compare the vaginal microbiome of Thai women to that of other human populations, the methods used pose a challenge: how can we compare these results to those of other studies given the difference in technology (Ion Torrent vs Illumina), primer design (multiple amplicons vs a more typical single-aplicon design), and classification approach (sequence identity to proprietary databases)? This is course not a problem unique to this study, but the divergence of methods here poses particular challenges. The authors should discuss the implications of selection of this combination of methods for the ability to compare with other studies.

- A number of unfamiliar organisms are described here: have all of the Lactobacillus species reported here been described in the vagina (or in humans for that matter) in other studies? Here's a complete list:

Lactobacillus_kefiranofaciens
Lactobacillus_futsaii
Lactobacillus_crispatus
Lactobacillus_sp.
Lactobacillus_taiwanensis
Lactobacillus_paracasei
Lactobacillus_coleohominis
Lactobacillus_gasseri
Lactobacillus_vaginalis
Lactobacillus_fornicalis
Lactobacillus_helveticus
Lactobacillus_johnsonii
Lactobacillus_acidophilus
Lactobacillus_iners
Lactobacillus_jensenii
Lactobacillus_pontis

Many of these are familiar, but some seem very unlikely: from a quick search, L kefiranofaciens, L futsaii, and L paracasei (for example; I stopped looking at this point) are environmental or agricultural organisms. Has Olsenella umbonata (mentioned in the abstract) been described in other studies of this environment? This species appears to have been first described based on isolates from pigs and sheep (https://doi.org/10.1099/ijs.0.022954-0) - has it been recovered from humans? Based on the examples above, the reader should be skeptical of the classification methods. It is my belief that the burden of evidence for the performance of proprietary software should be high given the difficulty of reproducing the analysis by other groups. Can the authors suggest an approach for verifying the validity of the classification results for organisms in this environment?

- The lack of correlation with sociodemographic and behavioral factors is not surprising given the small size of the cohort - I'd suggest that this study was probably underpowered for such a comparison. The absence of correlation can probably not be interpreted strongly.

- Similarly, it also is not clear to me that the size of the cohort is sufficient to draw meaningful conclusions about the similarity or differences between the microbiome of this population and others.

- The heatmap (Fig 1) appears to show absolute read counts rather than relative abundance - this is problematic if read depth varies among specimens.

- I am not a statistician, but one should weigh in on the method ("Independent t-tests for parametric data were used for bacterial abundance) used in Figure 6. Lots of concerns here, but in particular: 1) there is no mention of correction for multiple comparison; 2) there are well-known problems with induced correlation due to compositional data at work here that make this approach likely to be inappropriate, see (for example) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5695134/.
Validity of the findings: See above for comments on statistical inference and robustness of the data and analysis.
Additional comments: This manuscript presents bacterial community profiling data from a small (N=25) cohort of healthy Thai women. A combination of 16S rRNA variable regions were sequenced using an Ion Torrent protocol; classifications were performed by comparison with two reference databases using proprietary software. Lactobacillus-dominant and non-Lactobacillus-dominant community types were identified and contrasted.  Sociodemographic and behavioral factors were also compared with community composition, none of which where found to be significantly associated. The manuscript is well-written, but I have significant concerns about the methods; see individual sections above.


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: CATCH FAST AND KILL QUICKLY: DO TIGER BEETLES USE THE SAME STRATEGIES WHEN HUNTING DIFFERENT TYPES OF PREY?
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Basic Reporting.   In summary, this manuscript presents useful, valuable and new information about tiger beetle feeding, but is very poorly written and thus requiring extensive revision. The value of the paper is that the study addresses new information about prey selection and feeding processes of tiger beetle feeding, and something which is largely absent in the literature. The introduction and discussion provide valuable and complete review of the literature, indicating the authors know what has and has not been done on the subject. The introduction is generally well organized and complete.
 Undoubtedly the poor writing is related to difficulty in writing in English, but still the presentation in much to wordy and must be rewritten in a more concise and direct manner.  This is the case for all parts of the paper.  In the attached version, I include many track changes which I believe provides guidance on proper presentation.  These track changes are included in the Introduction, Methods and Results but not the discussion which is also in need of significant revision.  There is also some inappropriate use of terminology, such as using front, middle, back rather than accurate anatomical body regions.
The figures and tables are well done and appropriate for supporting the results of this study. The captions do need to be redone, however.  Figure 3 is a novel and excellent representation of the hunting and feeding sequence of behaviors, and I applaud the authors for this creation.  It is valuable part of the paper.
Experimental design: I think the experimental design is in general adequate, especially the size selection studies.  The experiment dealing with prey escape differences is probably acceptable and difficult to test by any design.  The selection and capture/feeding on these three different prey types cannot be concluded solely due to their escape behavior since these prey types are so different in many ways. Thus, the experiment in useful only testing selection of different prey types. A design that immobilizes the faster prey might be an approach, such as removing legs of beetles or grasshoppers compared to normal ones. The simple statistics used in the analysis are adequate.
The discussion includes a good review of possibly explanations of the observed results, bringing in relevant literature but needs to be rewritten to eliminate a repeat of results. ,.  The explanations of differences seem to be accounted for. I do think the discussion like the rest of the paper could be rewritten more concisely.  And, I think it would benefit from reorganization by first detailing the differences in the two tiger beetles and their habitats and then follow with how these could explain the differences observed.
To conclude, I think this manuscript makes significant positive contributions to tiger beetle biology, but must be rewritten to be acceptable before publication.
Validity of the findings: Nothing to add
Additional comments: As indicated in the review, this manuscript needs a major rewrite to more adequately conform to proper scientific writing.


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: CATCH FAST AND KILL QUICKLY: DO TIGER BEETLES USE THE SAME STRATEGIES WHEN HUNTING DIFFERENT TYPES OF PREY?
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Clear, unambiguous, professional English language used throughout.Yes
Intro & background to show context.                                                     Yes
Literature well referenced & relevant.	                                              Yes
Structure conforms to PeerJ standards,
discipline norm, or improved for clarity.	                                              Yes
Figures are relevant, high quality, well labelled & described.	              Yes
Raw data supplied.	                                                                              Yes
Experimental design: Original primary research within Scope of the journal.	                    Yes
Research question well defined, relevant & meaningful.                    Yes
It is stated how the research fills an identified knowledge gap.          Yes
Rigorous investigation performed to a high
technical & ethical standard.                                                               Yes
Methods described with sufficient detail & information to replicate.    Yes
Validity of the findings: Data is robust, statistically sound, & controlled.	                            Yes
Conclusions are well stated, linked to original
research question & limited to supporting results.	                             Yes
Additional comments: I think the sentences in lines 147-148 of the subsection “Prey size”, in lines 185-186 of the subsection “Prey escape potential”, in lines 198-199 of the subsection “Size preference – carabid beetles”, in lines 207 and 213 of the subsection “Size preference – caterpillars” can be deleted, because this information was given earlier.

Text in lines 151-154 can be modified as follows:
“There were 56 random individuals in each size of caterpillars measured and weighted (Table 1).
In both cases preferences of the prey size were noticed after the prey was caught and eaten, while feeding and checking were conducted under same conditions as in Experiment 1”.

The names of carabid beetles in lines 195-197 of the subsection “Size preference – carabid beetles” are unnecessary.

In subsection “Prey escape potential” is indicated that in the case with Calomera littoralis the caterpillars were the most common type of prey for both sexes, while in the case with Cicindela hybrida the dominant type of prey was not detected, because males and females caught caterpillars and carabid beetles with practically equal frequency. On the one hand both these propositions are true. But on the other hand both species are ignored grasshoppers as the prey. Thus, even in the case with Cicindela hybrida we can say about preference of the prey – caterpillars and carabid beetles in the equal probability.

Please, see these and other corrections in the attached PDF as well.


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: CATCH FAST AND KILL QUICKLY: DO TIGER BEETLES USE THE SAME STRATEGIES WHEN HUNTING DIFFERENT TYPES OF PREY?
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: In this manuscript the authors describe the foraging behavior of two common European tiger beetles towards different types of prey with a particular focus on the predators' preferences in terms of the preys' size and their flight abilities. I found a couple of critical issues that need clarification and I will also give some suggestions how this manuscript could potentially be improved. Below I will post more specific recommendations which I hope the authors will find useful for a revision of their manuscript.
Generally, I feel the level of English language use in this manuscript is sufficient. It could be improved at some points; some suggestions are given below.
One general aspect I want to highlight: in light of recent publications on size-related prey preferences in carabids (Brose et al. 2008, Vucic-Pestic et al. 2010, Kalinkat et al. 2011, Ball et al. 2015) it seems that it would make sense to add the respective information on predator-prey size ratios (or mass ratios) to this manuscript (also see Brose et al. 2006). Thereby it could be better connected to the ecological literature on general patterns and mechanisms that explain many aspects of predator-prey ecology with allometric scaling relationships (also see further comments below).
Another general remark about the whole storyline in the manuscript: for my taste the hypotheses stated in lines 83 to 95 could be much more specific and also better supported through the introduction. I feel at the moment these hypotheses are rather weak and almost trivial. Moreover, connecting the modified (and, ideally three,) hypotheses more specifically to the three experiments would make for a much more coherent manuscript.
Experimental design
Experimental design: I found it quite intriguing and also critical that there was absolutely no information about standardization of hunger levels. It has recently been shown that predator starvation levels in experiments that examine density-dependent feeding are absolutely critical for reliable results (Li et al. 2018) and, more generally, my experience also tells me that this kind of information should be stated and, actually is, usually given in almost all kinds of lab-based predator feeding studies.
Another thing that needs clarification: were all observations of all three experiments performed over the whole experimental time of four hours? This was not entirely clear to me.
Validity of the findings: No comments.
Additional comments: specific comments for the authors:
l.59: this sounds a bit odd, I would say either „chemoreception, audioreception and mechanoreception“ or „smell, hearing or touch“
ls.79/80: rather „... specific prey (= higher adaptation rates to environmental change) and/or colonise new areas (= higher dispersal ability).“
ls. 107-109: this seems like a statement/information that clearly belongs in the funding acknowledgement section at the end of the manuscript.
l.163: what exactly is meant by „the number of repetitions“ here? It is not clear to me how to interpret this. Is it meant to refer to repeated attacks of predators on prey specimen? Then I would recommend stating this explicitly.
ls. 192 ff: as stated in my general comments above I would really appreciate if body sizes, body size ratios and body size preferences could be quantified in this section. It seems for most of the interactions the data to easily provide these informations is there (even if there are only size classes, i.e. average values and no individual based size ratios for each single replicate which would be even better). In the light of recent advancements to understand arthropod food webs and communities based on allometric scaling relationships this would be a much more valuable contribution.
ls. 223 ff: the use of grammatical tense here is inconsistent which impairs comprehension to some extent. Please check throughout text and modify accordingly.
ls. 297 ff: As stated above, including and formalising quantitative information on predator-prey size ratios will help a lot to connect this stduy to the broader ecological literature. This general suggestion applies throughout the discussion and I encourage the authors to reflect on the studies that I suggested above to expand their discussion of predator-prey size relationships of tiger beetles.

References
Ball, S. L., B. A. Woodcock, S. G. Potts, and M. S. Heard. 2015. Size matters: Body size determines functional responses of ground beetle interactions. Basic and Applied Ecology 16:621–628.
Brose, U., R. B. Ehnes, B. C. Rall, O. Vucic-Pestic, E. L. Berlow, and S. Scheu. 2008. Foraging theory predicts predator-prey energy fluxes. Journal of Animal Ecology 77:1072–1078.
Brose, U., T. Jonsson, E. L. Berlow, P. Warren, C. Banasek-Richter, L.-F. Bersier, J. L. Blanchard, T. Brey, S. R. Carpenter, M.-F. C. Blandenier, L. Cushing, H. A. Dawah, T. Dell, F. Edwards, S. Harper-Smith, U. Jacob, M. E. Ledger, N. D. Martinez, J. Memmott, K. Mintenbeck, J. K. Pinnegar, B. C. Rall, T. S. Rayner, D. C. Reuman, L. Ruess, W. Ulrich, R. J. Williams, G. Woodward, and J. E. Cohen. 2006. Consumer-resource body-size relationships in natural food webs. Ecology 87:2411–2417.
Kalinkat, G., B. C. Rall, O. Vucic-Pestic, and U. Brose. 2011. The allometry of prey preferences. PLoS ONE 6 (10):e25937.
Li, Y., B. C. Rall, and G. Kalinkat. 2018. Experimental duration and predator satiation levels systematically affect functional response parameters. Oikos 127:590–598.
Vucic-Pestic, O., B. C. Rall, G. Kalinkat, and U. Brose. 2010. Allometric functional response model: body masses constrain interaction strengths. Journal of Animal Ecology 79:249–256.


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: SEASONAL AND PREDATOR-PREY EFFECTS ON CIRCADIAN ACTIVITY OF FREE-RANGING MAMMALS REVEALED BY CAMERA TRAPS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The raw data is accessible and for the most part, the study contains good, intelligible English. A few typos and examples of poor wording are mentioned in the line-specific comments below.

In terms of scope and questions, I believe that the authors might be over-reaching with what inference they can draw on predator-prey relationships (especially given that many of these prey species likely have numerous predators whose behavior is not documented in this study), but the circadian rhythm reporting is valid. More emphasis up front could be given about the limitations of the data (as discussed more fully in my comments).
Experimental design: The authors are obviously making good use of data that has been collected previously, but I think the authors need to spend more time discussing the limitations of using these opportunistic data sets. One of my biggest issues with the paper is that the authors don't spend much (any?) time acknowledging that they are using indices that are uncorrected for detection probability and could represent either changes in animal activity or changes in animal abundance or chances in detectability through time. For example, trigger distance could be shorter at night or fewer animals could be seen at night because visibility is worse. Seasonally, vegetation could obscure cameras more in summer vs. winter. The authors suggest that seasonal changes in capture rates are due to changes in behavior, but perhaps for some of these short-lived species, they are actually picking up on changes in population size? While the authors may not want to explore correcting for detectability within the scope of what they are trying to accomplish here, acknowledging these issues and citing appropriate literature (starting with O'Brien et al. 2011 on RAIs, for one) I think would be incredibly important for this paper.

Also, for some of these species, the empirical opportunistic data is worse or perhaps more un-comparable than others. I'm thinking specifically of the baited squirrel traps and the issues of the cameras not being at a height to capture small rodents. Perhaps these two species could be excluded from the analysis?

I also think the authors could do a better job of stressing in the beginning that little has been done to study the Irish populations of these animals. The discussion reads like they are finding over and over again that their measurements match the literature, such that highlighting why what the authors have accomplished here is either new or what repeating these studies adds to the literature would be helpful (I think this is there, just not well-expressed).
Validity of the findings: Another issue I had with this paper is the amount of inference that the authors attempt to draw on predator-prey dynamics in these systems. I believe that the information they present on circadian rhythms is valid, but many drivers dictate activity patterns, including physiological constraints and the presence of other predators uncaptured in this study. This is a very correlative study and the authors make very strong statements about predator-prey dynamics that I simply can't see as being supported by what they present here.
Additional comments: This paper describes the circadian rhythm patterns of Irish woodland animals derived from opportunistic camera trap data from a variety of survey projects. The authors also attempt to draw inference on temporal niche partitioning between these species in a predator-prey context, although as their work is only correlative as does not consider other key factors dictating animal circadian rhythms, I believe that some of these conclusions should be toned down.

I found the discussion a little bit difficult to wade though, going species by species. It would have been easier to grasp if the authors first could have highlighted any surprising or unusual findings first, and then talked about each prey in light of all of their predators at the same time (e.g., something like “woodmice temporal activity patterns overlapped heavily with pine martins, but they appeared to exhibit asynchrony with (which may indicate avoidance of) this other predator") to help facilitate the conclusions that the authors draw about predator-prey dynamics (although see my note above).

Line-by-line comments are presented below:

Line 29: And physiological constraints and evolutionary history and a whole host of other, critical drivers. I think physiological constraints (as per Kronfeld-Schor & Dayan 2003) at the very least need to be considered here.

Line 30: Remove "of deer, hare, and squirrel" because it confuses the reader in the next two lines about your actual study species

Line 47: First sentence is grandiose and not necessarily - delete.

Line 48: Do not need to define "circadian" to this audience

Line 49 - Adaptive behavior, yes, but also constrained by organism physiology (i.e., Kronfeld-Schor & Dayan 2003).

Line 52: For predator/prey activity, include Kronfeld-Schor & Dayan 2003, Fenn & McDonald 1994 at the very least.

Lines 50-54: This whole section could be bolstered by a few more references.

Lines 55-61: Just including a single animal as an example here is a little confusing and subjective, and not particularly useful. Either change to groups of animals that display these behaviors, or rather, just remove entirely.

Line 62: Also include Fenn & McDonald 1994 here.

Line 65: I don't know if this sentence follows from the previous thought. I would delete or move to a new paragraph

Lines 68-69: This would be a good place to say WHY we would want to do this in the first place.

Line 72: You mention a "number of methodological techniques", but then only list one - could you elaborate further by including other techniques and their flaws?

Lines 68-87: I would restructure this paragraph so that the methods are listed first, with the limitations of the methods at the end.

Line 90: There are a number of recent camera trap reviews which have come out in the last few years which would be more germane here, such as Wearn & Glover-Kapfer 2017.

Line 114: "Few focus on quantifying animal activity patterns" – I don’t think this is true at all. I would estimate that 70-80% of camera trapping papers quantify animal activity patterns.

Line 118: "hypothesize"; also, please visit Kronfeld-Schor & Dayan 2003 for how plastic animals can be in terms of changing their activity patterns - degree to which patterns are response of behavioral plasticity vs. evolutionary hardwiring / other constraints.

Line 118: What do you hypothesize predators will do in response to changes in activity by prey? I think it's important to remember that you're capturing the end play of a predator-prey game, where each player has been adjusting their own activity over evolutionary time in response to the other.

Line 123: Was there any way in which you quantified human activity? What was the gradient of human activity across your sites?

Line 142: Set randomly? Systematically? Stratified? Average distance between camera traps? How does this relate to the average home range of a deer (i.e., how likely is it that a single individual gets captured at multiple camera traps?) – same comments for all camera trap studies

Line 146: How many photos per trigger for each kind of camera specifically? Also, how many cameras of each type?

Line 148: Relocated? The authors stress in introduction that cameras can be deployed for an indefinite period of time…

Line 148-149: What did the authors do to correct for these differences in survey design?

Line 153: Typo: "either" not "either3"

Line 154/155: "in situ" not italicized here, but italicized above on line 151 – please be consistent.

Line 146: The authors don't list total number of locations for previous survey -- please be consistent in information presented about each survey (a comparative table would be helpful).

Line 166: In the methods, it would be good to discuss how difference in camera placement, like angle, sensitivity, etc., are dealt with statistically.

Line 170: How did the authors determine independent captures? 10 min delay, 30 min delay, etc.?

Line 174: How does this compare to other survey locations?

Line 178, 181: Average deployment?

Line 189: Do the authors have a citation for this? Perhaps look at the relative abundance index literature (e.g., O'Brien et al. 2003).

Line 195: These first two sentences can perhaps be less dramatic.

Line 198: This sentence should be rewritten without the weird clause (bad grammar).

Line 252: To what degree do the authors think seasonal differences are due to vegetation obscuring camera trap visibility (or similar)?

Line 318: Are these other values also in accordance with the literature? In which case, I would want an argument about what repeating the study adds to our understanding of these animals' behaviors.

Lines 326-328: Is there any reason to believe that fewer captures actually a result of lower population size, rather than chance in animal behavior? Is there a hunting season or similar for any of these species?

Line 332-334: Confusing grammar – change to something like: "It has been suggested that fallow deer are sensitive to anthropogenic disturbance, exhibiting facultative behavioral responses such as ..."

Line 348: This statement is too strong - the empirical study that you've just conducted with opportunistic data does not prove this statement.

Line 414: Type - "focused"

Line 429-430: This is too strong a statement to make about these animals’ ecology based on this data.


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: SEASONAL AND PREDATOR-PREY EFFECTS ON CIRCADIAN ACTIVITY OF FREE-RANGING MAMMALS REVEALED BY CAMERA TRAPS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This paper is an interesting and well-written study of mammal camera trap data in Northern Ireland.  The writing style is, on the whole, clear and unambiguous.  I have a minor comments on basic reporting few comments, listed below.
The discussion and context are well referenced, and the figures and tables are informative and well-designed.
In the references in lines 55 to 61, it is not clear which reference is the recent study of 4,477 species and which are specific references describing the behaviour of individual species.  This could be expressed more clearly.
Lines 121-122 – this statement about the climate is ambiguous – and doesn’t really need a Met Office reference to say that the climate is temperate and that precipitation varies locally.  If you refer to the climate, at least give some statistics (annual rainfall, temperatures range etc…).
Line 127 – what is meant by “non-inclusive” here?
Figure 3 label “fallow” should be “fallow deer”.
Figure 5 column headings “annual”, “spring” etc… above these plot would be easier to interpret than the complicated labelling system.
Figure 5 and 6 – no need to state in the figure legend “Data were derived from camera trap surveys in Northern Ireland….” This is explained in the methods.
Line 308 “distinct between seasons” – do you mean consistent between seasons?
Experimental design: The experimental design is well defined, and although the disparate trap data utilised were not designed primarily to address the questions posed by the paper, the authors do a good job of showing that camera trap data can provide an effective method of describing activity patterns in mammals, and present some useful results on activity patterns in Irish mammals.
Validity of the findings: The findings are robust, and statistics are appropriate.  The methods used to assess predator avoidance are most open to criticism, as correlations between activity in predators and prey does not constitute a causal mechanism (any diurnal or nocturnal species will show a correlation between any other diurnal or nocturnal species).  However, the authors discuss their results appropriately, the conclusions are well stated, and do not overstate the significance of their findings.
Additional comments: Overall I found this a straightforward and interesting study, using an admirably comprehensive dataset to assess the use of camera traps in diurnal activity.  Given PeerJ’s data policy, I would prefer if the data (say, hourly activity counts throughout the survey period for each species) were made available.


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: SEASONAL AND PREDATOR-PREY EFFECTS ON CIRCADIAN ACTIVITY OF FREE-RANGING MAMMALS REVEALED BY CAMERA TRAPS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: I commend the authors for a well written article. The language is clear and unambiguous, professional. The authors have also adequately cited relevant literature to the research. Figures and tables have been provided. However, some of these maybe more suited as supplementary material, and for some the quality (resolution) will need improvement before final publication. I have also noticed that the same information (some results) is presented both in table and figure. I have suggested that results only be presented in one form and not both, preferably in table format. For instance, Figure 5 and Table 4 are presenting the same information. I thank the authors for sharing the raw data. The data itself is robust and worth a full publication testing the presented hypothesis.
Experimental design: The manuscript presents original research and fits within the aims and scope of PeerJ. The research question is well defined and relevant, filling an important knowledge gap. The authors have performed rigorous and technical analysis for a well thought through research question. However, the study designs from which the data is drawn are not adequately presented. The statistical analysis and its associated results are based on data drawn from several studies, with different designs and data outcomes, which has raised problems in the interpretation and should be improved before Acceptance. I suggest that the study would have bypassed this caveat by using data from the same population (s) collected with same methods and design. The inclusion of small mammals in camera trap data analysis also raises further questions on the validity of the interpretations considering that much of the camera trap literature suggests camera traps as ineffective means to survey small mammals.  The authors may need to provide further justification for the inclusion of small mammals in their analysis.
Validity of the findings: The study is of high importance to wildlife ecology and specifically predator-prey interactions. Nevertheless, analyzing data from various sources causes lots of problems in interpretation for reasons the authors have explained. The camera trap analysis explained in this manuscript would have benefited a more streamlined study involving standardized data from one population or system. Further, data on small mammals brings more problems considering that camera traps are not the most effective methods to study small mammals. Indeed, most studies, even those investigating predator-prey relationships, rarely include small mammals in the analysis. I find the conclusions of the study to be of a narrow scope and do not specifically speak to the data, but general statements from camera trap studies. For instance, the last sentence of the abstract appears in virtually all camera trap studies on predator-prey interactions. Give one example how your data facilitate effective management and conservation of the ten species under study? What is novel about this data/study that readers have not read in existing camera trap literature? This is currently lacking and/or insufficiently presented.
Additional comments: General comments (some already highlighted in the three sections above) :
I commend the authors for for their extensive analysis of camera trap data combining several studies and species. The manuscript has been clearly written in a highly professional style. However, the statistical analysis and its associated results are based on data drawn from several studies, with different designs and data outcomes, which has raised problems in the interpretation and should be improved upon before Acceptance. I suggest that the study would have bypassed this caveat by using data from the same population (s) collected with same methods and design.  The inclusion of small mammals in camera trap data analysis also raises questions on the validity of the interpretations considering that several camera trap literature suggests camera traps as ineffective means to survey small mammals. Circadian activity was not given much attention by the authors as compared to seasonal and annual patterns. I also suggest that the temporal activity categories should be confirmed with statistical tests. Please include legend on figure 1. For Fig. 2. I don't think images of the mammals is necessary. If necessary, I suggest images for all the 10 species are presented. For Fig. 3. I suggest that the y-axis title be changed to reflect that it represents activity density. Fig.6. Please advise what the dotted lines mean? Table 2. I suggest a column on body size is included in the table. Table 4. (title) I would rephrase " Temporal activity interactions (avoidance and attraction) of five predator-prey pairs" or something along those lines…. attraction?? Predators synchronizing their activity with that of their prey. I suggest that decimal places are consistent

Specific comments:
L2: I suggest “change” be replaced with “differences”. “Change” may suggest a causal effect which a correlative study like this one may not provide evidence for.
L2: Insertion: … temporal…
L22: Word count missing
L28: I suggest “occurrence” be replaced with “presence”
L29-32: Long sentence communicating different ideas. I suggest this sentence is split.
L30: The surveys were for deer, hare and squirrel, but the results you report starting at L32 include other species. These other species were presumably detected during the course of the three surveys. Thus, it may seem inaccurate to report surveys as "deer, hare and squirrel" surveys, when the surveys recorded other species.
L30: … to describe circadian and seasonal temporal activity of ten…
L31: Camera traps have been criticized as ineffective tools to studying small mammals. Please justify your use of camera traps to study small mammals. With this limitation, how representative are your species of interest of the small mammal community in your system?
L31: What about prey attraction behavior? Predator-prey interactions involve both prey avoiding predators and predators being attracted to prey.
L31: Helpful to describe this analysis to the reader, otherwise please cut
L32: Please rephrase. "We recorded 8,761 detections”. Please also mention if the detections were independent or not.
L32-L35: I have five thoughts on how this result is presented:
1) I don't think to report the n if we even don't know whether these were independent detections or not.
2) The species should be presented in some order may be based on body size or number of detections, the latter being in ascending or descending order.
3) The way the circadian activity is reported is not consistent. Some species were reported as "largely".... while for others the pattern is specifically reported e.g. as crepuscular or diurnal.
4) Are the reported circadian patterns based on a statistical test i.e. are the badgers significantly nocturnal? If yes, would be useful to report these.
5) The study species should be clearly mentioned when results are reported. This is particularly true for the two species of hares. Please give the names for both species. The same applies to "rabbits".
L36: Sentence may need to be rephrased. Currently hard to follow.
L39: … cut “highly”
L40: I suggest If there is a need to categorize some of the species as lagomorphs, please do early enough in the text. For instance, which of the 10 species in your study are being referred to as lagomorphs?
L40: Is this a comparison among seasons? How many seasons were considered for the analysis? This should be mentioned somewhere above.
L41: Is this a comparison among seasons? How many seasons were considered for the analysis? This should be mentioned somewhere above.
L41: The reader will not be surprised by this statement. The ability of camera trap studies to provide ecological information on a wide range of species (excluding small and non-terrestrial mammals) is pretty established by a wealth of published camera trap studies.
L43: Please cut “which may improve…”
L43-44: I find the conclusions of the study to be of a narrow scope and do not specifically speak to the data, but general statements from camera trap studies. For instance, the last part of the sentence appears in virtually all camera trap studies on predator-prey interactions. Give one example how your data facilitate effective management and conservation of the ten species under study? What is novel about your data/study that readers have not read in existing camera trap literature? This is currently lacking and/or insufficient.
L47: Spatially too
L48: Spatial patterns too... I suggest that would be really nice to have this paragraph speaking to both spatial and temporal activity as two key niche processes.
L50: This sentence here resonates with my thoughts that this first paragraph should be rephrased to reflect the contribution of spatial activity too. The way it is presented here it ignores the important contribution of spatial activity to species ecology. Then in the second paragraph, I would narrow down to temporal activity, and speak to both circadian and seasonal temporal activity.
L55: I suggest that this paragraph is rephrased to introduce in detail literature on temporal activity. I like the last sentence of this paragraph. I would build on such to make a case why temporal activity is an important niche process in animals.
L55: Worth reminding the reader that "activity patterns" is specifically speaking to temporal activity
L56: I would cut this text. I don't see how it is contributing to the story. Further, the examples of nocturnal, diurnal, cathemeral or crepuscular species given here are very species specific, and makes me wonder why you chose these species as examples out of the 4477 species you have mentioned at L56. Perhaps only mentioning the four main temporal activity categories (and their definitions) without going into specific examples will suffice.
L61: This is an interesting citation, but I don't its relevance to the subject matter of the manuscript. The title speaks to "free-ranging mammals". Yet, text here speaks to laboratory subjects. Further, your findings do not show any intraspecific variation in temporal activity. I suggest you cut.
L67: Please define “season”
L71: I suggest you cut. The first sentence of this paragraph excellently highlights the challenges of studying animal temporal activity. The next sentence should highlight how camera traps have become a standard means to filling this knowledge gap.
L88: Please give a brief definition of what these are.
L90: Please be specific by directly mentioning these "population parameters"
L94: Please cut “survey effort and”
L98: Cut text
L100: Already mentioned at L94. Please cut.
L101: I would cut text from L101 to L112. Firstly, this text undermines your use of camera traps to study wildlife activity. Secondly, it contradicts some of the benefits of camera trap data you have highlighted in the preceding text. What I would find useful is to have this paragraph end with a justification for using camera traps to study the wildlife in your system, particularly small mammals, for which, camera traps have been reported to be ineffective to study.
L114: Please give examples
L115: Insertion “… temporal… activity patterns (circadian and seasonal)”
L117: I don't see how your data is investigating predation risk. What your data is showing is avoidance (for prey) or attraction (for predators), which may reflect predator-prey interactions e.g. predation risk.
L118: Precisely! This is what (temporal avoidance) the study is investigating, not predation risk. However, I would add to this hypothesis that predators will be attracted to prey by being active when their prey is active. It is an arms-race -between prey avoiding predators and predators getting attracted/synchronized to prey.
L119: I suggest that the method section is re-written. Differences in study design including number of camera placement, camera trap models, baiting vs. no baiting, positioning from the ground, number of photos per trigger, duration of trigger delay and number of survey days, both within and between species need clarification. Further, the study designs for the included studies should be explained in detail than currently presented. There is also repetition of text in the methods e.g. "cameras were equipped with fitted with 8 GB HDSD cards,156 secured with Python security cables, motion detectors were set to medium sensitivity, each capture was stamped with the date and time" appears in methods for each species (or group). The methods section needs to be streamlined to avoid such repetition.
L120: Active tone please. I would rephrase "We collected camera trap data on deer, squirrels...."
L121: Is this a general description of weather conditions at the study site or description during the study period? My guess is the former, as I don't think climate has changed since 2016.
L122: Same thoughts as on L121. I guess the tense should be tweaked to reflect this is a description of the study site and not for the study period.
L123: Please cut “individual”
L124: Please rephrase to active tone
L125: Please give species or genus names
L126: Please give species or genus names
L127: Please give species or genus names
L127: Please explain what non-inclusive means.
L128: Please cut “current”
L134: When were the badgers, foxes, rabbits and wood mouse surveyed? They don't appear in the survey schedules outlined in the preceding sentence. Were these recorded as part of the deer, squirrel and hare surveys?
L134: This is a result. Please move to results. Please also include the test statistic for this result.
L135: Please highlight earlier in the Introduction that activity patterns refers to the circadian and seasonal activity.
L140: Please define acronym DS
L140: please rephrase to active tone
L141: I suggest “squares” be replaced with “grids”
L142: The numbers do not add up. It is also not clear what the sampling design was. Please give the number of cameras (and camera placements) used for each of the four and two deer studies, and not averages. How many cameras (and camera placements) per 1 sq-km grid?
L148: Again, why the difference in design for the same species?
L149: Another difference in design; 30 vs. 40 cm from the ground, number of triggers, delay... Please explain the difference.
L151: The whole study was in-situ. Please clarify. I don't see the need for mentioning in situ. Please just say " Cameras were left at locations for 7 days". This applies to most of the methods succeeding this section.
L151: Why 7 and not 14? like for other DS?
L151: Please explain the difference in the design among the DS. There is variation in design ranging from camera trap models to placement and survey period. These differences need to be explained.
L157: Please justify the 1-hour threshold and give references to previous studies.
L161: 23 1km2 grids
L168: Videos for triggers
L168: Cut in-situ
L168: Does this mean that detection differs between conspecifics? How does the difference in still image vs. video influence detection of conspecifics?
L169: This a big assumption (and an important part) of the study design. Justification of its use should be included here and not referenced.
L176: 3-4 m from the ground for a small mammal? This seems too high?
L177: The deer and hare studies did not involve baiting. Why the difference? Was the baiting targeting only the squirrels and martens or also the predators? Baiting vs. no baiting makes a huge difference in number of detections and may even bias temporal activity. Please see recent work documenting the impacts of baiting in camera trap studies.
L181: Differences in design
L182: Again, I think this is way too high from the ground for mammals as small as squirrels. This needs to be justified.
L188: Please explain the logic behind the assumption. Animals can only be detected on camera traps only when active, specifically, when in motion. The number of detections per diel hour period reflects the level of activity across the circadian period.
L189: What was the rationale behind the grouping? Was it for the purposes of identifying independent events?
L190: This sentence is unclear. Please rephrase. Mentioning that photos recorded an hour apart were assumed independent detections is intuitive enough.
L192: Inserted texted “in a single camera photo”
L205: Please “cut”
L207: What was the independent and dependent variable s for the ANOVAs. Please provide this information here.
L209: active tone please?
L210: What about at the circadian scale?
L211: Which is a predator and prey? Please show in parenthesis
L212: Cut text
L213: Which is a predator and prey? Please show in parenthesis
L219: Active tone please.
L227: Are all these independent detections? If yes, please mention. What was the total survey effort?
L227: Please present in order e.g., descending order. I also find the camera trap images in Fig.2 for the mammals redundant.
L235: It would be great to have these patterns tested statistically i.e., is the number of species detections (activity) statistically different across the circadian periods (nocturnal vs. diurnal vs. cathemeral vs. crepuscular)?
I also suggest that the circadian and seasonal patterns are presented separately; starting with the circadian patterns followed by the seasonal patterns. Same applies to results on the overlap coefficients and lagged regressions.
Figure 5 and Table 4 are presenting the same information. I suggest that results are presented in one or the other, but not both. I suggest table.
I suggest that the analysis also include temporal activity at the circadian scale, in addition to annual and seasonal.
L239: Text to start on new paragraph
L244: Text to start on new paragraph
L268: The text in this section is mixed. I suggest that overlap coefficients (and their CIs) be presented separately from the lagged regressions.
L269: What about at a circadian scale?
L270: Were the overlap estimates generated from the overlap package? If yes, they should be referred to Fig. 3.
L270: Figure number is missing
L272: Table 4 and Fig. 5 show the same information. I suggest that results only presented in either table or figure but not both. I suggest the table format.
L273: This sentence should go to the discussion
L274: I would not consider a 75% overlap between predator and prey a "temporal separation". This depicts attraction or synchrony. I would rephrase "... of temporal overlap..."
L274: Again, I don't think this result reflects predation risk. I would rephrase "... suggesting increased opportunities for prey (hare) encounter (hunting success) for the fox..." or something along those lines.
L280: Which species? Please clarify by mentioning the species
L283: Is this last sentence of this paragraph an overall summary for all species pairs or for a specific predator-prey pair? Its not clear. If yes to the latter, perhaps, the pred-prey pair should be mentioned somewhere in this sentence.
L303: I feel that the circadian activity patterns have not been given much focus in the study, but seasonal and annual.
L304: I don't think "change" is the best word to use here. "Change" may imply a causal effect of sunrise/sunset on temporal activity patterns, which may require a controlled experiment and not a correlative study like this one. I would rephrase "... exhibited different activity patterns in relation to sunrise/sunset" or something along those lines.
L305: Please see my suggestion at L304
L307: Cut “months”
L309: Insert “consistent”
L309: This contradicts the earlier suggestions that attribute differences in temporal activity due to sunrise/sunset and season
L310: Please cut “particularly”
L311: Insert “… activity…”
L312: May you please define here and in the methods what overlap coefficient is considered "low or high"?
L313: winter
L313: Long sentence. Please split text on marten and squirrels
L318: Please check author guidelines. Chronological??
L320: between
L321: …  reported… limited
L324: I suggest you cut. The discussion should focus on the activity patterns.
L325: … less active…
L326: Move reference to the end of the sentence.
L328: This is critical. And you highlighting it here undermines your findings, and indeed underpins the weakness of the study design. Maybe the animals were not just detected because some of the studies had cameras positioned way high above the ground???
L329: Please cut “found to be”..
L330: cut text
L331: cut text
L332: I wish you had statistical tests to confirm these. "Largely" and similar words are subjective. Please see my earlier thoughts on this earlier in the text.
L334: Please move to L333 after "... behavioural responses..."
L337: cut text “found to be…”
L337: "Increased" suggests a change, and possibly, a causal effect. I suggest the tone is tweaked to reflect that this a correlative study and not experimental. That said, I would rephrase to "... nocturnal; being more active at dusk and less at dawn".
L340: Cut text “rural”
L343: Timing at which scale; circadian, seasonal or annual? please clarify
L345: Lethal control is not a disturbance. A disturbance is a general stimulus, and animals may get habituated or sensitized to disturbances (see Frid and Dill 2002). On the other hand, lethal control is a specific stimulus (shooting in this case), and animals would be expected to respond with specific anti-predator strategies, otherwise animals stand high risk of mortality (predation). Please rephrase.
L348: Patterns for “periods”
L348: Using this word, and not earlier in the text, may be confusing. Further, it is best to be consistent with the animal names throughout the text.
L350: Please cut percentages in parenthesis.
L353: … than in…
L354: May you explain why this may be the case? Could it be body size???
L358: This sentence seems redundant and doesn't add much to the story. I will cut.
L360: It is possible that the species can co-exist via spatial or dietary niche partitioning.... or even avoid each other temporally at very fine scale. There is a great deal of literature, much of from sympatric carnivore systems.
L363: This sentence is unclear.  ... a suggestion of underlying...? Who is making the suggestion?
L365: This sentence is hard to follow without the reader's prior knowledge of Monterroso et al., (2013) findings.
L366: You raise a good point here! Indeed, the use of different datasets from various studies causes lots of problems in interpretation for reasons you explain well here. I suggest that the study would have bypassed that caveat by using data from the same population collected with same methods and design. The current analysis leaves open myriad explanations for the observed patterns than what is reported here.
L371: “Sporadic” should be explained.
L373: cut text
L375: This is irrelevant to your results. Please cut
L378: Inserted text “associated with its”
L379: Cut text “of contemporary studies”
L382: But for “bar”
L383: …higher…
L388: cut text
L390: Inserted text “between seasons”
L392: Please give reference here
L395: Please specify the populations being referred to here
L395: I don't see relevance. I suggest you cut.
L404: Is 73 independent events of a free-ranging animal few?
L408: reported to
L412: The categorizations of "small" or "low" are really subjective. For instance, an ecologist working with free living wildlife would perceive 57 a large sample size. I suggest rephrase.
L413: Again, this statement undermines your work. Much of your prey data is for small mammals. Further, as I have already mentioned, camera traps are perhaps not the best means to survey small mammals.
L417: This is not what the extensive camera trap literature shows.
L418: See my preceding thoughts on using data collected with designs for varying purposes for this analysis.
L422: … cut text “direct”…
L423: Cut text
L430: ?
L434: This study did not test spatiotemporal relationships but temporal.
L463: as I have mentioned in my thoughts throughout this text.
L475: Baiting will definitely heighten animal activity, and the implications of this should definitely be a factor in this analysis. There is a possibility that animals will alter their activity patterns to exploit increased forage resource.
L490: The current analysis and its results are hard to interpret for reasons you have well highlighted. The camera trap analysis explained in this ms would have benefited a more streamlined study involving standardized data from one population or system. Further, data on small mammals brings more problems considering that camera traps are not the most effective methods to study small mammals. Indeed, most studies, even those investigating predator-prey r/ships, rarely include small mammals in the analysis.
L500: This is open to debate, as clearly pointed out in your discussion. I would suggest that study is better streamlined to focus on medium-to-large system in survey(s) that employed standardized methods, and in so doing mitigating study design related confounding factors.
L501: Please rephrase. Currently complicated to comprehend.


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: GENETIC AND PHENOTYPIC DIFFERENTIATION OF LUMPFISH (CYCLOPTERUS LUMPUS) ACROSS THE NORTH ATLANTIC: IMPLICATIONS FOR CONSERVATION AND AQUACULTURE
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: In general, the manuscript was well written.
Experimental design: The methods section lacks sufficient detail.  The relevance of some of the statistical tests to the overall objectives of the study should be made clearer.
Validity of the findings: The number of loci used is quite low for robust estimation of demographic parameters. This needs to be addressed in the discussion.
Additional comments: Minor Comments
Line 102. Which classes of markers have been used in these earlier studies?
Line 110.  The first sentence should read, “There were three basic aims of this study.”
Line 116, 121. New paragraphs are not needed here.
Line 119. Describe what is meant by “genetic baseline”.
Line 129.  A map should be included here to show lumpfish distribution and sampled sites.
Line 128.  Clarify how were individuals assigned to populations for AMOVA analysis?
Line 144.  Were this loci designed for use in lumpfish? This should be stated here.
Line 189.  What does alpha stand for here? It is unclear what this matrix is being used for.  In general more explanation is needed regarding how divMigrate estimates Nm.
Line 193. How well does the LDM method estimate Ne based on only 10 loci and small sample sizes?
Line 197.  Why test for population expansion here?  Is this a test for bottlenecks? This needs more explanation.
Line 203.  What is the life-span and age of reproduction for lumpfish? Did you examine sex ratios?
Line 240. This FST seems very low.  What is considered significant differentiation?  A reference should be used to support this.
Line 243. The AMOVA results should be shown in a table.
Line 255.  This should be a “neighbor joining tree”.
Line 299.  Many of the FST values were very low.
Line 309.  Remove “did”.
Figure 2.  Specify in the legend what the numbers are on the branches.  Should the legend read Neighbor joining tree?
Figure 3.  Populations should be labelled here to be consistent with Figure 2.  One of the populations has an effective population size of infinity.  This usually means that the data was uninformative.  This should be addressed in the discussion.


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: GENETIC AND PHENOTYPIC DIFFERENTIATION OF LUMPFISH (CYCLOPTERUS LUMPUS) ACROSS THE NORTH ATLANTIC: IMPLICATIONS FOR CONSERVATION AND AQUACULTURE
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Overall this manuscript is well presented, clearly written and concise. The figures and tables are relevant and the raw data are supplied as supplementary material.
Experimental design: The research questions are well defined except the third one (lines 122-125) where the authors propose to estimate ‘effective population size and test for genetic bottlenecks to better understand conservation status and the extent to which gene flow could mitigate the impact of over -exploitation’. The latter statement is unclear as the focus of the ms is rather on the preservation of distinct genetic units with potential local adaptation (putatively linked to phenotypic differentiation) hence gene flow (artificial by translocation?) would not seem the best solution to ‘mitigate the impact of overexploitation’ and fishery regulations would seem more appropriate?

The statistical analyses are relevant and well performed, and methods are mostly described with sufficient detail.

I have only some concerns with the Bayesian clustering analyses of population structure. The authors used the programs Structure and Tess to identify the number of clusters (K) in their data set. However, with Structure they used the new estimators developed by Puechmaille (2016) to infer K even though those estimators require the a priori information of geographic origin of individuals (or the membership to a given population) to be calculated. Hence this analysis can be seen as partially redundant with the one performed with Tess that explicitly uses spatial information of the localization of individuals to infer K. An alternative would be to analyze Structure output with no a priori on the geographic origin of individuals by using the direct posterior probability for each K or the deltaK estimator. In addition, it is not clear how the spatial information was incorporated in the Tess analysis as it seems that the precise location where each individual fish was collected was not known as only one location is indicated for each site even though those sites may cover large areas.
Validity of the findings: The conclusions are well stated and limited to supported results.
Additional comments: I believe this manuscript deserves to be published once the modifications suggested above are incorporated.


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: REASSESSING PUBLIC OPINION OF CAPTIVE CETACEAN ATTRACTIONS WITH A PHOTO ELICITATION SURVEY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This is an interesting study that adds to the literature on public attitudes towards cetaceans in captivity. The literature on captive marine mammals has been well researched.

I think, however, that assuming that using images leads to less bias may be wrong. As the researchers note, positive feelings can be generated by images with smiling faces. However, these sections of the manuscript can easily be toned down to be more cautious.

With this in mind, the researchers should pay particular attention to the abstract (line 46-55) - the discussion is summarized with a certainty that is certainly not warranted.

Some recent studies (e.g. Whitney Naylor et al.) have shown that public attitudes shift according to what type of captive display setting animals are in e.g. there is more sympathy for rehabilitation and research facilities than dolphin show facilities. This study is possibly picking up some of that difference in attitudes (i.e., depending on facility type).

It would have been interesting to find out where the tourists thought the animals in swim with facilities came from. For example, some tourists I questioned thought that dolphins in swim-with facilities were free to go out to sea at night, and came in to interact with tourists during the day because they wanted to...  thus, they thought they were actually "wild" dolphins.

Anyway, this is an interesting study, and I suggest a few minor edits just to be more cautious.

One minor typo/mistake:
Line 77 - Parsons, E. C. M., & Muhs, K. (1994).  Note that this was written by Chris (Christine) Parsons the science communicator not Chris (ECM) Parsons the marine mammalogist
Experimental design: I would  be somewhat more cautious when discussing the idea that surveys using images result in less bias.

As noted above, the latter lines of the discussion should be re-written (~45-55). There is an untested assumption that using images leads to less bias than check box type questionnaires. This simply cannot be stated with certainty.

For example, Megan Draheim et al. found in several studies that the type of image of a coyote viewed by those questioned resulted in different levels of conservation concern e.g. images of coyotes playing led members of the public to produce substantially different results to images of coyotes howling. Images can substantially influence attitudes - that's why they are used in marketing campaigns all the time. Some citation of such studies would be useful in this paper.

What would have been really helpful to assess the methodology would have been a control sample with no images being used, to see if there was a significant difference in response with or without images (perhaps this could be added to the paper as possible future studies?).

As a result, I think that statements like line 530-535 are very valid - smiling faces and happy people are probably more likely to lead to a positive response. Suggesting a follow up study without images or a dual image/without image study would be a good idea.

Karaffa et al. found that rebranding species names to sound cute or patriotic (e.g. changing coyote to native american song dog) lead to a substantive leap in conservation concern. So even little tweaks like this can effect public interest/attitudes.

In short, there is no evidence that using images results in bias free surveys. In fact, there are some studies that suggest that images could potentially result in bias.

Line ~380. Personally, I think that a lot of the differences could be explained by different demographics and tourist types. For example, Katheryn Patterson's tourists in Belize were relatively high end, environmentally-aware ecotourists. If the majority of tourists in Turks and Caicos were cruise ship mass tourists, that might explain some of the differences. The demographics of tourists in the Dominican Republic are probably closer to those in the Turks and Caicos (e.g. mostly inclusive resort beach tourists in Draheim et al. ).

Several factors influence attitudes to captive marine mammals, including education,  political affiliation, affluence, whale-watching experience, NGO membership etc. Differences in any of these factors might effect differences between populations.This section (Line 380~) could perhaps be expanded to discuss all the various factors that have been found to influence  attitudes towards captivity.

In the US these factors can be seen regionally, for example, in the various marine theme parks: SeaWorld in San Diego and Florida and losing tourists, but not so much for SeaWorld San Antonio.

With a sample of 259, the 95% margin of error is +/- 6.1% approximately. This should be included in the methodology.

As noted above, the discussion section of the abstract (lines 45-55) needs rewriting. At present emphatic statements are made which cannot really be supported. It would be better for the authors to moderate their statements. EG just because their study does not match the results of other studies, does not mean they these other studies are "biased" or "misleading", as noted above, demographic differences and sample error could explain a lot of the variability. Just describing their results and noting that that they are slightly different to some other studies, which might be because of variety for factors including methodology and demographics etc, would be a more temperate and less controversial conclusion.
Validity of the findings: As noted above, the findings of the study are perfectly valid, but some of the interpretation and conclusions need to be edited slightly to perhaps be somewhat more cautious.
Additional comments: I enjoyed reading this paper. It was very well written and well researched, and would provide an interesting addition to the literature on public attitudes to cetaceans. I have just a few minor suggestions for the researchers to be a bit more cautious in their interpretation.

The researchers should be aware that  when published this paper might get a lot of press attention as it's quite a hot topic issue. They should be wary that the press and activists from either side of the captivity issue might take sections out of context, so they should try to "bad press proof" the paper as much as they can.