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: COMMUNITIES OF T4-LIKE BACTERIOPHAGES ASSOCIATED WITH BACTERIA IN LAKE BAIKAL: DIVERSITY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: Overall comments -

I have read the manuscript by Potapov et al., and appreciated its interesting premise, which has the potential to generate relevant findings for the field. However, as written, the manuscript does not effectively communicate the motivation behind the study, or link this with the methods used, the results, or the conclusions. One of the main problems with the manuscript currently is that the objective of the study is not very clear due to inconsistent wording/framing. For example, the title frames the study as a report of diversity and biogeography of T4 bacteriophages associated with the bacterial fractions from samples collected in Lake Baikal. The abstract then frames the study as a comparison of bacterial fraction-associated bacteriophage communities across sample locations and types (i.e. viral fraction, biofilms) in Lake Baikal. The final paragraph of the introduction states that the investigators are comparing viral diversity across sample types (viral fraction, bacterial fraction, non-fractionated) along with a comparison of viral diversity at different locations in Lake Baikal which will then be compared to diversity seen in other ecosystems (Lines 93-97). Given these differences in framing, it is unclear what content to expect in the methods, results and discussion sections. There are also sections of text that seem to be broken up, for example, there are several lines throughout the manuscript that are not attached to any paragraph (see lines 46-48, 340-343, 344-346, 347-348, 349-351, 386-390). In addition, there are a lack of in-text citations to Figures and Tables which makes it very difficult for the reader to interpret the results and discussion points presented. Finally, the methods described in the manuscript are lacking detail, and several sections should be reorganized and revised to allow the reader to better follow what is being reported/discussed. For these reasons and given the fact that I find that the general premise of the study to be promising, I recommend that the authors substantially revise the manuscript so that it is clearly framed in one way and follows that framing throughout the entire manuscript. Below are specific comments to certain sections of the manuscript:

Abstract
General comments -

	There is plenty of space (currently 135/500 words and 850/3000 characters used) for the addition of a few more sentences providing details like the reason for the work, novelty of work, number of samples taken/how they were collected, type of samples (surface water vs water from depth), sequence processing (clustering %), etc. I believe a sentence for the motivation of the study and its design is missing. Overall, the manuscript would benefit from a more descriptive abstract to give the reader a good synopsis of what is being tested/reported in the paper.

Specific comments -

Lines 19-21 – An introduction sentence(s) prior to this one would benefit the abstract. Rough example: “Lake Baikal phage communities are important for lake functioning. Here we look to describe the diversity of T4-bacteriophage associated with the bacterial fraction of filtered water samples collected from pelagic zone, coastal zone and shallow bays. Phage communities were probed using amplicon sequencing methods targeting the major capsid protein (gp23) and compared phylogenetically across sample locations and with sequences previously retrieved from non-bacterial fractions (<0.2 um) and biofilms (non-fractionated).”
Line 21 – “High throughput sequencing…”; This sentence describes the number of sequences recovered with the sequencing approach but should specify here the use of amplicon vs metagenomic sequencing (see above).  Also, number of samples would be a nice addition to this sentence.

Lines 22-25 – Clarify if these sequences were published previously or are these from the same samples as mentioned previously?
Line 27 – Replace “most” with percent of OTUs and provide total number of OTUs identified (could be done in a previous sentence).

Introduction
General comments –
This introduction would benefit greatly from reorganization and the addition of background information more complementary to the objective of the study. While the information within lines 31-48 is interesting, it is not necessarily helpful for the reader to interpret what is being done in the study. Information similar to what is within lines 60-92 would fit better towards the beginning of the introduction providing useful background information about the role of bacteriophages in lake ecosystems while giving insight into the motivation of the study. The objectives listed in the final paragraph should be more evident in other sections of the paper, for example, from this final paragraph it seems the goal of the study is to compare the virus diversity across different fractions from the same sample, however, this is not mentioned in the methods, results or discussion.

Specific comments -
Line 33-32 – replace “huge number” with “their high abundance”

Line 38-39 – I think the sentence starting on line 39 could be appended to the sentence ending in line 38.
Line 49-50 – Revise sentence to “Due to lack of universal genes in viruses, signature genes for specific groups are targeted using group-specific primers.”
Experimental design: General comments -

I believe the manuscript would benefit from more a more descriptive methods section with justification of certain decisions (e.g. keeping primers on amplicon sequences) made in the analysis/experimental design. A major concern for the experimental design is the lack of replication at most sites which worries me when it comes to a comparison of diversity between locations. A few other major comments for each section:

Section 1 – Sampling sites
-	Please revise this paragraph with additional details like total number of samples collected and how many per site. Also, it would benefit the results section if there was a little more description of the sampling sites themselves and what makes them different (might make discussing the water chemistry results easier later in the manuscript). For example, adding sentences like “There were two Lake Baikal bays, one coastal zone and one pelagic zone sampled in this study…” would very much help when discussing differences across samples later on in the manuscript.
-	Coordinates for sample locations should be included in the main manuscript and could be included in the text within this section or in a more descriptive caption for Figure 1.
-	In Figure 1, please make color of land and water consistent for each map. Currently the land in the map of Russia is dark grey, the other parts of the figure have land in a light grey and the water in a dark grey. Also, Figure 1 contains acronyms for sample sites, I recommend adding a more descriptive caption defining acronyms to make it easier for the reader to digest experimental design.
Section 2 – Water chemistry
-	This section could be moved to after sections 3 and 4 to help with flow of methods overall.

Section 3 - DNA extraction and preparation of amplicons
-	The final paragraph in the introduction mentions the comparison across multiple sample types, although this section only mentions the generation and extraction from the bacterial fraction from the samples.

Section 4 – Bioinformatic analysis
-	Please be clearer in this section, expand specifically on how the analysis was done, for example, were merged reads pooled from each sample prior to dereplicating/clustering or was each sample analyzed separately.
-	Another way to improve in this section would be to reorder the text a little bit, first describing all nucleotide-based analyses then all amino acid-based analyses
-	I would also recommend describing within this section or adding a table with descriptions of the datasets that were compared to in this study.
-	It is not recommended to keep primers on amplicon sequences. While virus primers are generally more degenerate than bacterial primers, primer mismatch can occur and thus the information in these areas could be false (see Lefever et al. 2013, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2013.203653)
-	Overall, the level of detail in this section does not allow for easy reproducibility of the analyses. A potentially useful tool  for virus amplicon sequencing analysis is the program vAMPirus (https://github.com/Aveglia/vAMPirus).
Validity of the findings: Please rearrange the sections within the results to allow the reader to follow along easier, for example, water chemistry and the NMDS looking at the physical parameters and bacteriophage community composition may be more appropriate after describing the differences in diversity observed at each site. In-text citations to Figures and Tables that display the results being presented/discussed would also greatly aid the ability of the reader to appreciate the findings. Overall, the impact of these results and discussion section is hindered by the variable framing/objectives of the study along with an underdeveloped methods section. I believe if these areas were worked on further, the results and discussion would benefit significantly.

Also, I thank the authors for the representative sequence fasta file provided, however, instructions for how to access raw amplicon sequencing data for this project should be added in the next version of the paper.
Additional comments: no comment


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: COMMUNITIES OF T4-LIKE BACTERIOPHAGES ASSOCIATED WITH BACTERIA IN LAKE BAIKAL: DIVERSITY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: I think that this paper has been refocused and greatly improved. My comments are all technical in nature.

Line 25: change to: “this gene has not previously been studied in the bacterial fraction”
Line 115: change to “up to 8 hours in cyanophage”
Line 462: change to “expected”
Line 501: I am not sure what this sentence is saying. Please rewrite. Is “this strain” HTVC008M? Perhaps: “High synteny between HTVC008M and Lake Baikal sequences was previously determined.”
Line 511: change to “expected”
Line 515: change to: low numbers
Line 516: say "more similar" rather than "more identical". However, this sentence is also hard to understand. Are you trying to say that it is hard to tell whether the viruses are more similar in the bacterial fraction compared to the viromes fraction? Since the samples >0.2 and <0.2 um are from different parts of the lake and different times. I don’t think this comparison is possible. Probably the authors can delete this sentence and just say that it isn’t possible.
Line 574: change to “expected”
Line 599: delete the words “as provided”


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: COMMUNITIES OF T4-LIKE BACTERIOPHAGES ASSOCIATED WITH BACTERIA IN LAKE BAIKAL: DIVERSITY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The paper has been improved a lot, especially with the shift in aim and focus. The data gathered and the analyses conducted are a good foundation to discuss diversity of these phages within Lake Baikal, and their relationship to phages across the globe. However, I still think that the paper needs further attention with regards to language and structure, especially the results and discussions where different ideas are not fully explored in coherent paragraphs. It would facilitate for the reader if diversity is discussed with regards to blastp and then also linked with the clustering analysis and phylogenetic analysis. As it is now these paragraphs are not really tied into each other and sometimes they are very long and hard to follow. For the discussion, this becomes even more apparent since it is hard to follow what other phages the Lake Baikal phages are most similar to.
Experimental design: The research gap and the aim are much more suited to the data described, and the findings with regards to clusters of phages across the globe is interesting. Reporting of the findings could be improved, however, to make the data easier to follow and to understand. The methods section has also been improved and it is easier to follow what has been done.
Validity of the findings: The conclusions could still be improved to better reflect the full scope of the study.
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: DIFFERENCES IN THE EXPRESSION PROFILES OF LNCRNAS AND MRNAS IN PARTIALLY INJURED ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT AND MEDIAL COLLATERAL LIGAMENT OF RABBITS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The paper was easy to follow and comprehend. I found no issues with use of English language and grammar.

All the figures used in the paper are high quality and annotated with appropriate legends and titles.
Experimental design: The authors have stated all the methods with clarity along with specific versions of Bioinformatics tools used. I am impressed by the extensive work that was done on RNA-seq analysis, Gene functional annotation and PPI network construction. The authors also very clearly state all the threshold values and cut-offs used for each of the bioinformatics analysis. I have also thoroughly checked that the raw data has been deposited in SRA.
Validity of the findings: The findings are compelling and backed by extensive application of bioinformatics tools and necessary statistical to show the involvement of specific lncRNAs in the pathogenesis of endogenous repair disorders in ACL.
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: DIFFERENCES IN THE EXPRESSION PROFILES OF LNCRNAS AND MRNAS IN PARTIALLY INJURED ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT AND MEDIAL COLLATERAL LIGAMENT OF RABBITS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: 1.	“Introduction”: Although orthopedic researchers are very familiar with ACL and MCL, it would be nice if there is some background information about ACL and MCL, and their differences in this part.
2.	The label in the Figure2,3,4,5,6,7,8 should be only A, B C, D, instead of Figure Number A.
3.	The structure could be more concise. For example, “Line 175-180 would be better in the “Methods” section.
4.	There are some grammatical errors. English revision is necessary.
Experimental design: 1.	The description of ACL, MCL, and the normal group is unclear and confusing.  According to the “methods” section, 3 rabbits were normal, and 3 rabbits had ACL and MCL injuries. How is the injury? Are MCL and ACL injuries given on the same rabbit?  Then according to the results part, and Figure2, Figure3, it seems that there are 2 animals in each group. What is the difference between ACLN1, ACL N2; MCL N1, MCL N2; and the N1, N2, N3?  Please clearly describe the definition of the normal controls and the injured groups.
2.	The authors selected some random genes to verify their RNA-seq. It would be more meaningful to verify the most important genes related to the altered pathway, which would also make up for the limitations.
Validity of the findings: There are reports on the difference in gene expression between ACL and MCL injuries (Jasmine A Beye et al. Am J Sports Med. 2008. PMID: 18448582.) and molecular changes of ACL obtained from injury animal models or patients by gene sequence methods. Authors should include these citations in their papers to have a comparison.
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: DIFFERENCES IN THE EXPRESSION PROFILES OF LNCRNAS AND MRNAS IN PARTIALLY INJURED ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT AND MEDIAL COLLATERAL LIGAMENT OF RABBITS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The English expression is clear and could be improved with more of background information for why this is important and how this correlate to clinical findings/problems.

There are no hypothesis in the manuscript.
Experimental design: In Gu et al. manuscript “Differences in the expression profiles of lncRNAs and mRNAs in partially injured…”, authors introduced anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and medical collateral ligament (MCL) to rabbits and performed RNA-seq for ligament tissues. By comparing their lncRNA expression profiles, significantly altered lncRNAs were analyzed with pathways enriched, and partially confirmed with RT-PCR. While seems like there are differences, the manuscript could be further improved if answering following questions:
1.	How ACL and MCL in rabbits related to clinical human disease? Is there any supportive evidence showing the model applied in the paper could mimic clinical ACL and MCL?
2.	What is the central hypothesis of the manuscript and why it is important?
3.	Most of figures in the manuscript are too small to read, it could be improved if the figures could be reorganized with the key findings in main figures and others in supplement.
Validity of the findings: 4.	Are RT-PCR confirmed expression correspond to RNA-seq data? What about most differentially expressed gene but not yet discussed as a title in literature?
5.	Is there any protein level confirmation or clinical samples could confirm the differential expressed lncRNAs/pathway related genes?
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: DIFFERENCES IN THE EXPRESSION PROFILES OF LNCRNAS AND MRNAS IN PARTIALLY INJURED ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT AND MEDIAL COLLATERAL LIGAMENT OF RABBITS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 4

Output:
Basic reporting: This manuscript addressed the expression profiles of lncRNAs and mRNAs in partially injured ACL and MCL of rabbits at 1week after modeling. The authors mentioned the importance of sequencing of the lncRNAs, miRNAs, and mRNAs in intact and partially injured ACL and MCL. The point of this manuscript is newest and prevalent. However, the results and discussion sections have not been configured.
     This manuscript has many concerning points to discuss the results. Before thoroughly evaluating, the authors should be improving some issues of methodology and re-consider the section of discussion of this study.
Experimental design: Line 71-74
      The authors should clearly explain why to analyze the expression of lncRNA and protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis in this study. This study design confuses the reader.  Please clearly state the purpose of this analysis.

Line 113
     Why do authors use FPRMs? FPKM does not respect invariance property and cannot be an accurate measure of relative molar RNA concentration (See: Wagner et al.  "Measurement of mRNA abundance using RNA-seq data: RPKM measure is inconsistent among samples" Theory in Bioscience. Vol.131, pp281-285, 2012.).  Authors should re-calculate using Transcripts Per Million (TPM).
Validity of the findings: Line 305-
     I understand that this research consisted of many results. However, the discussion section replaced the enumeration of the results. There is not enough interpretation of the results. Authors should be reconstructing and brushing up

Line 330-335
     Too long sentence. Please re-consider.
     Many sentences in the discussion section are too long. Authors should be carefully confirming the whole manuscript.

Line 354-
     In this study, the authors compared intact ACL with MCL in the normal group. In this case, the authors should mention the baseline difference of ACL and MCL genes.
Additional comments: Through the discussion section,
     This manuscript lacks the assessment of results in the discussion section. Many of the results showed, however, the author's arguments are not clear. Reduce the listed gene names and reconstruct the arguing point.


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: DIFFERENCES IN THE EXPRESSION PROFILES OF LNCRNAS AND MRNAS IN PARTIALLY INJURED ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT AND MEDIAL COLLATERAL LIGAMENT OF RABBITS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors made some changes according to the modification comments, which is helpful to the improvement of the paper.
However, there are some problems to be further improved as well:
1. The quality and clarity of the figure.
2. The title of each section in “Results” should be clear and represent the key points, not a description of the used methods.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: DIFFERENCES IN THE EXPRESSION PROFILES OF LNCRNAS AND MRNAS IN PARTIALLY INJURED ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT AND MEDIAL COLLATERAL LIGAMENT OF RABBITS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Authors had addressed all my concerns and questions.
Experimental design: Authors had addressed all my concerns and questions.
Validity of the findings: Authors had addressed all my concerns and questions.
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: DIFFERENCES IN THE EXPRESSION PROFILES OF LNCRNAS AND MRNAS IN PARTIALLY INJURED ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT AND MEDIAL COLLATERAL LIGAMENT OF RABBITS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors have very thoroughly addressed all of my previous concerns.
Experimental design: The authors have very thoroughly addressed all of my previous concerns.
Validity of the findings: The authors have very thoroughly addressed all of my previous concerns.
Additional comments: There are no comments anymore.


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: CTRP3 AS A NOVEL BIOMARKER IN THE PLASMA OF SAUDI CHILDREN WITH AUTISM
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The English language should be improved to ensure that an international audience can clearly understand your text. There were multiple grammatical errors and font sizes. Furthermore, several sentences did not transition well.

More information should have been provided, i.e. expanding on the identification of biomarkers.
Experimental design: Which type of CRTP3 was measured in this study? Please specify
CTRP3 can circulate in different oligomeric complexes: trimeric (<100 kDa), middle molecular weight (100–300 kDa), and high molecular weight (HMW) oligomeric complexes (>300 kDa).

The design of the experiments did not have depth to them. More experiments could have been done to further expand or support on their very minimal results section.
Validity of the findings: -The results section is only one paragraph? Results section should be further developed. Please provide more information to help the readers understand the results, the 6 tables and figure 1. A well-constructed Results section includes subsections that describe a question, the experiment conducted to answer that question, the results of that experiment, and the answer to the question. Subheadings provide visual signals at the start of descriptions of separate experiments to help guide readers.
Additional comments: Overall this paper has a lot more work that should be done before it can be considered for publication. Annotations have been made on the pdf.


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: CTRP3 AS A NOVEL BIOMARKER IN THE PLASMA OF SAUDI CHILDREN WITH AUTISM
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The paper entitled “CTRP3 as novel biomarker in plasma of Saudi children with autism” aims to explore whether CTRP3 could be used as a novel biomarker for ASD. This topic is interesting. I would recommend the authors to address the following points when revising the manuscript.
Major points
[1] CTRP3 can be detected in a variety of tissues and organs (lines 64 to 67), however, in lines 138-140, the author states that “the remarkable higher level of CTRP3 in plasma of autistic patients compared to healthy and gender matching controls can be easily related to the disruption of BBB as phenotypic feature in autism"; in lines 173-174, “With a disrupted BBB as autistic feature, the recorded increase of CTRP3 could be concomitant with remarkable decrease in the brain due to influx from brain to blood.” How to explain this?
[2] If there are some new literatures, the literature related to CTRP3 need to be updated. The references in this manuscript are from 2018 and before. In addition, are there any studies related to this study in recent years?
[3] The patients in this manuscript were diagnosed through the 5th edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders criteria. Therefore, it is better to use ASD instead of autism.
[4] In the results section, the author did not tell the unit of the CTRP3 measurement value.
[5] I recommend the author to cite some latest studies or reviews of ASD diagnostic markers in the Introduction section, such as Shen et al., 2019, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05542-4_11; Shen et al., 2020, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cca.2019.12.009
Minor points
[1] It is very strange, in lines 64 to 71, there are some yellow highlights. Please correct.
[2] Figure 1 is not clear enough, and the display of significant differences in this figure is also unclear. Figure 2 is also not clear enough.
[3] The "P" of the P value, whether in uppercase or lowercase, please unify the full text.
[4] In line 167, it should be “H2O2”.
[5] Please revise carefully to eliminate grammatical errors.


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: CTRP3 AS A NOVEL BIOMARKER IN THE PLASMA OF SAUDI CHILDREN WITH AUTISM
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: I thank the authors for addressing the previous comments.

However, please consider revising the use of your English language. Despite the attached certification provided to ensure that your English has been corrected, there are multiple areas that need to be worked on.  Please note that there are several grammatical mistakes and poor sentence structures.
Experimental design: It is great that the authors are looking for biomarkers and despite a small cohort size, have been able to identify a potential marker.  They covered the design well.
Validity of the findings: All data has been described well.
Additional comments: None


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: CTRP3 AS A NOVEL BIOMARKER IN THE PLASMA OF SAUDI CHILDREN WITH AUTISM
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The article has improved. However, some grammar still needs to be revised. Please check carefully. In addition, the author mentioned that the revisions were highlighted in yellow, which I did not see. Moreover, the point-to-point answers have not been fully completed. For example, the 2 in "H2O2" should be a subscript.


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: BIOCHEMICAL PROFILE IN MIXED MARTIAL ARTS ATHLETES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: At points I feel the language used isn’t quite correct and an additional proof-read is required in order to provide clarity in a number of instances and would ensure the text could be understood more clearly by a wider audience. For instance, metabolic disorders are mentioned in the introduction yet it is unclear what is meant here or if ‘disorders’ is the correct terminology to be using. There are also a number of other instances where it seems the point is lost due to incorrect wording or phrasing being used. Some other examples are in lines 27, 40, 96 & 255.
The raw data was shared and the tables were generally good.
Experimental design: The general design of the study is good and the aims were relatively clear but some extra detail and specificity on the elements of the study would be beneficial.  In the methods “intermediate category” is used to describe the participants, but it is unclear if this relates to the standard of the athletes or the weight category of the athletes. Standard MMA categories in terms of level would be amateur, semi-professional and professional and so if it relates to this it needs to be standardised to the generally accepted norms. It is also unclear if the athletes compete in the same weight category. The inclusion of ranges for things like body mass, lean mass, and fat mass would also be useful. The change in body mass in that time-period appears much lower than would be seen in MMA athletes, some explanation or discussion here would be beneficial to provide clarity. The lack of training load data does limit the interpretation of the data somewhat as well although if it were possible to include if every athlete completed all sessions and how the sessions were split e.g striking, grappling, conditioning etc this may help.
Validity of the findings: In terms of the statistical analysis, it is not made clear if the data were normality distributed or not. I also believe that the analysis used isn’t the most appropriate. A Wilcoxon test has been used but this compares each series in pairs as opposed to performing the comparisons altogether with post-hoc paired analysis subsequently used. A Friedman test may be more appropriate if data were not normally distributed, and a repeated measures ANOVA if the data were normally distributed.
There is also no inclusion of the data comparing series IV to V, unless there is a typo where it says III - V
In terms of your discussion and conclusion, there needed to be more discussion of the data from your study with a greater link to its significance/relevance in relation to the wider literature. The article would benefit by including the main findings from the present study within the first 1 or 2 paragraphs. You have also stated that this is the first study to explore this area and so it increases the reliability, which doesn’t automatically equate.
Additional comments: The authors are to be commended for implementing a time demanding and challenging study that aims to explore ‘real-world’ data from a sport that has seen significant growth in recent years. The data could provide some good insight into the metabolic responses to MMA training and competition and add to a limited depth of research in this area. However, whilst I see the value in the data presented, I feel there are a number of things that can be done to improve the relevance, impact and understanding of the 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: BIOCHEMICAL PROFILE IN MIXED MARTIAL ARTS ATHLETES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Some important references are missing to provide context and comparison of the data.
Experimental design: Methods require details about any weight cutting that has taken place, methods used and magnitude of weight loss.
Reconsider the use of the Wilcoxon test for repeated measures data, as this may increase the error rate of multiple comparisons. Suggest replacing with Kruskall-Wallis test (if the data are non-parametric).
Validity of the findings: Data is provided and it clear, but please see previous comments regarding use of Wilcoxon for repeated measures and whether the results need to change accordingly.
Additional comments: To the authors,
Thank you for conducting an interesting and useful study in a group of athletes that is very difficult to conduct data collection with. I believe this will be a welcome addition to the literature, but there are some improvements required before publication. The main improvements is in the statistical analyses completed, consideration of other similar studies within the introduction and the discussion, and a deeper discussion of why your results occurred as they did and what they mean for applied practice. The authors also need to explain in detail the weight cutting practices employed prior to the simulated bouts and appropriately discuss these in relation to the biochemical results. Therefore I am recommending major revisions at this stage. I look forward to reviewing the resubmission and reading your work further.
Kind regards,
Christopher Kirk

Introduction

Line 34: Please state under which rule sets (professional/amateur) the length of rounds would differ.

Lines 37-38: I think this statement needs clarifying. Would metabolic ‘disruptions’ be more appropriate here than metabolic ‘disorders’ – as disorders suggests a chronic malfunction of the system, which I don’t think you’re implying here. Equally, are metabolic disruptions the only result of training loads and the only physiological aim of training? And are these changes positive or negative for the performance and health of the athlete?

Lines 41-42: I think a more appropriate reference may be used here. Suggest: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6090403/

Line 44: Suggest inclusion of this reference alongside Amtmann & Berry (2003) to provide a more recent evidence of how regular sparring is used in MMA training: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251266

Lines 50-52: Suggest brief discussion of Coswig et al (2016) as a key paper on biochemical responses to sparring and competition: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5003304/. Also suggest consideration of https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28658085/ and https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/2730/273051167004.pdf as other papers to perform similar analyses (as summarised in: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02640414.2020.1802093?needAccess=true). Whilst Ghoul et al is mentioned in the discussion, it would be worthwhile introducing it here to set up your data.

Lines 56-58: Suggest inclusion of https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251266 and/or https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29989458/ to demonstrate the combination and effects of training loads and weight cutting in MMA training.

Lines 61-62: Was a specific hypothesis formed for this study, or was it an observational study?

Methods

Line 67: Please define what is meant be ‘intermediate category’ here.

Lines 77-81: Was this program designed by the researchers? Or was this the participant’s regular training pattern? What did the preparation, regeneration and competition periods consist of? Please provide brief details of how each period differed from the others. What does the term ‘one day dedicated to wellness’ mean here?

Lines 81-84: Did the participant’s cut weight for the simulated bouts or did they take part at their habitual body mass? If they did engage in weight cutting, how much mass did they lose and over what time frame did this take place? Please consider what impact this might have on the biochemical data reported.

Lines 96-99: How were these measures controlled between trials?

Lines 121-122: Is a roped ring the ‘normal’ competition area for these athletes? Might this cause differences in technical/tactical occurrences in the bouts opposed to competing in a caged area?

Lines 129-130: Please clearly state which variables are somatic and which are biochemical. For the biochemical variables, is Wilcoxon the correct test to use? It seems the authors are comparing differences between more than 2 series at a time, which would require a repeated measures test (i.e. the Kruskall-Wallis test in the case of non-parametric data) to account for multiple comparisons errors.

Results

All statistical tests (including in text and tables): Please report p values ≤0.01 as such. P =0.00 suggests p is absolute zero, which is not possible. Please also provide the full Wilcoxon results and measures of effect size for all comparisons to allow comparisons between studies and inclusion in future meta analyses. Please see previous comment about whether the Wilcoxon test is the correct test to use for the biochemical variables.

Line 144: Please remove the term ‘highly significant’. P values are either significant or not. Please include effect sizes to demonstrate the magnitude of any differences.

Lines 154-159: Please reword this section to make it clear that 11.81±5% and 5.63±4.83% refers to plasma changes and not body mass changes. Please also see my previous comment about whether the participants engaged in weight cutting and to what extent during this study.

Discussion

Lines 164-167: Reconsider the use of the term ‘reliability’ here, as the number of results do not indicate reliability.

Lines 169-171: Suggest rewording of this statement as it’s difficult to understand what point the authors are trying to make. What is meant by the ‘right combination’? And why is it beneficial to obtain similar
biochemical values?

Lines 173-174: Please provide references to support this point – which studies raise this question?

Lines 179-180: Which data support this statement? Has any metabolic or energy data been collected from training or competition?

Lines 184-191: This is why the clarification of weight cutting magnitudes and practices is important for this study. Without this information we cannot know how or why these results occurred. Also, please support the phrase “numerous studies emphasize high adaptive capacity in elite athletes” with references and an explanation as to which adaptations are important (or possible) for weight cutting.

Lines 192-216: I think the authors need to present a deeper discussion about why the data may have occurred in this specific study and what this could mean for the training of MMA athletes. This section currently reads like a review of endocrine literature, rather than a discussion of findings.

Lines 240-241: Is this the highest individual increase? As the mean increase is not as great. Please reword to make this clearer.

Lines 243-245: Please describe what is meant by intense physical activity here and provide reference to https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251266 and/or https://sesnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Uddin-et-al-2020.pdf as the only studies that provide detailed MMA training load data.

Lines 248: Is dehydration common throughout the training period or only during the weight cutting period? If it’s not as common during the training period, then how likely an explanation for increased CK might this be?

Lines 255-257: What recommendations could be made from these data? When are the most physiologically intense periods? How might coaches manipulate these intensities and why?


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: BIOCHEMICAL PROFILE IN MIXED MARTIAL ARTS ATHLETES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Reporting is clear and in sufficient detail. Language used is professional and accurate, with good use of tables to display key results. The authors have addressed the key literature in this field in both the introduction and the discussion.
Experimental design: Research design is appropriate for the questions being asked whilst also avoiding unnecessary physical burden of the participants. Replication will be possible based on the details provided.
Validity of the findings: Data is robust, with sound statistical methods used. Conclusions are clear and reflect the data, which has been provided reviewed in it's raw format.
Additional comments: To the authors,
	Thankyou for responding to the requested changes in a timely and thorough manner. I believe your study is now greatly improved and will provide a strong addition to the literature whilst giving researchers and practitioners a deeper understanding of the effects of an MMA training and competition period. The only minor amendment I request is the addition of omega squared (ω2) effect sizes to the ANOVA results for each test for use in future comparisons and meta analyses. I look forward to seeing this in print once this is completed (alongside any other changes requested by the other reviewer).
Kind regards,
Christopher Kirk


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 DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR PRIMARY HEADACHE DEVELOPED THROUGH MACHINE LEARNING
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Introduction
•	This article relates to the implementation of machine learning techniques in classifying types of headaches (migraine / tension-type headaches).
•	Five well-known machine learning techniques were implemented to serve the classification purpose.

Originality
•	The authors use the primary dataset to build the model.
•	Although the techniques used (machine learning techniques) are relatively standard, the dataset's source provides some originality to indicate novelty.
•	References – only 36% of the cited papers/articles are published from the year 2017 onwards. I recommend that more latest references should be added.

Language
•      This article needs to be proofread. There are some typo / grammatical mistakes—for example, feature selection instead of “feature selecting” (line 179). I suggest you have a colleague who is proficient in English and familiar with the subject matter review your manuscript or contact a professional editing service.
Experimental design: •	Overall, the scientific rigour of this article is pretty basic. There some missing elements are needed to improve the robustness of the results.
•	Are data pre-processing methods (e.g. data cleaning, transformation, reduction) were used or did I miss something fundamental here?
•	Principal components analysis (PCA) is one of the data reduction approaches that could be used to improve this model.
•	Five ML techniques were chosen as classifiers (lines 154-156). Despite the usefulness of these techniques, I recommend the authors explain the technical justification (related to the data attributes, data types and types of classes (binary-like classification). The provided explanation (lines 157-170) only covers overall ideas of those techniques' behaviour.
•	As the distribution of the classes is almost equal (84 (migraines):89 (tension-type)), the classification accuracy rate also can be used together with other evaluation metrics. The results (as in Table 2) show the proof of the results.
•	Although F1-score is a good measurement, it works well when it comes to the balance between precision and recall. I did not find any solid justification for relying on F1-score as the dataset classes ratio is pretty balanced.
•	Are there comparisons were made based on selected features? (e.g. top two variables vs ten variables (that was selected from the total of 48 variables). This comparison is essential to see the compactness of the model according to the Occam’s Razor perspectives (models should have as few parameters/features as possible).
Validity of the findings: •	Model evaluation techniques need to be improved – e.g. adding more methods. (as the dataset = 173 records), it requires more intensive evaluation constructs. As reported in line 153, it seems 80:20 (training vs testing ratio) is not sufficient to show the model's generalisation power.
•	Recommendation – to conduct the experiments based on several ratio variations (60:40, 70:30, 80:20), using holdout and cross-validation methods. This part is crucial to evaluate the real classification power of each classifier.
Additional comments: •	The flow of this article could be improved by explaining the process using the machine learning reporting approach (data requirement, collection, understanding, preparation, modelling, and evaluation).
•	The font style for tables and the clarity of the diagram can be 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: A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR PRIMARY HEADACHE DEVELOPED THROUGH MACHINE LEARNING
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Please state your method flow clearly from questionnaire to feature selection to classification. In line 24 which is your method(s), should you remove your findings and put it in the results section. Rephrase the sentence and add the missing flows/parts of your method.

Why did you include North America cases in your introduction paper? What are the items that you want to compare with China and where is the reference? [citation needed]

In line 66, computer scientist mostly do not know that migraine has two types. Please rephrase / elaborate more on that. "They" in line 66 refers to? Consider use the proper word for it.

In line 80, consider elaborate more on your area of AI related topic rather than generally speaking about it. [citation needed when elaborate]

In line 84, tell us how automatic classifier can become faster than the clinicians? In what way? Rephrase.

In line 105, in what way current practice that include ML in headache diagnostic are having major obstacle in clinical practice? How can you conclude/tell us more on your 0.9 F1-score is better than 90% accuracy rate in line 105?

Are your trying to introduce another method of assessing headache by using questionnaire compared to the other research that you have cited?
Experimental design: In line 135, please elaborate more on the experts contribution towards making the questionnaire to a certain extent.

Please rephrase line 147 to 152. Reduce the grammatical errors.

More grammatical errors in line 165.

Elaborate more in line 166 to 167. Please specify in which area related to biological information?

Please include formula on how do you calculate the F1-score, precision and recall. Why does it important to evaluate your findings?

In line 179, feature selection or feature selecting? or selecting feature?

Please rephrase line 180.

Please put your reference in line 199 to 200. Figure / table / something?
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: Please elaborate your claim in line 267 to 269. Avoid making general statement in discussion as it does not reflect or discussing your method/findings.

In line 269 to 270, what are you trying to tell here? Please discuss further on the topic.

Starting line 300, please consider to remove numbering in explaining the flaws.

Please revise the conclusion part.

The acknowledgement should include your research funder or the experts who helps in designing and revising the questionnaire.


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 DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR PRIMARY HEADACHE DEVELOPED THROUGH MACHINE LEARNING
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The flow of the paper is still moderate. Perhaps, it could be improved a bit
Experimental design: My initial comment: Are there comparisons were made based on selected features? (e.g. top two variables vs ten variables (that was selected from the total of 48 variables). This comparison is essential to see the compactness of the model according to the Occam’s Razor perspectives (models should have as few parameters/features as possible).

The authors’ Answer: We did not make comparison based on selected features. In clinical work, important clinical characteristics can help clinicians quickly grasp the focus of the disease, but in the process of disease diagnosis, the fewer reference characteristics,  the easier it is to make misdiagnosis. Relying on two variables to diagnose headaches is inadequate in clinical practice. Therefore, to make sure a higher headache diagnostic accuracy, clinicians should collect as much relevant information as possible.
*update: I agree with the justification. However, within machine learning (e.g. feature engineering), the analysis of important features are equally important to maintain the classification power by minimizing the trade-off between performances over simplicity.

* Update: I agree with the justification. However, within machine learning (e.g. feature engineering), the analysis of important features are equally important to maintain the classification power by minimizing the trade-off between performances over simplicity.
Validity of the findings: My initial comment: Model evaluation techniques need to be improved – e.g. adding more methods. (as the dataset = 173 records), it requires more intensive evaluation constructs. As reported in line 153, it seems 80:20 (training vs testing ratio) is not sufficient to model's generalisation power. Recommendation – to conduct the experiments based on several ratio variations (60:40, 70:30, 80:20), using holdout and cross-validation methods. This part is crucial to evaluate the real classification power of each classifier.
Authors’ Answer:  Consider Reviewer'sviewer’s suggestion, we have conducted the experiments based on several ratio variations (60:40, 70:30, 80:20). The final result has been also corrected in the revised manuscript.

*Update: The authors added the recommended experiments. However, no comparison table and explanation were made to justify the selection of the best training: testing ratio. I am expecting some tables to show the results.
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR PRIMARY HEADACHE DEVELOPED THROUGH MACHINE LEARNING
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: The author has amended the article accordingly—my final suggestion, to have a proper check to improve the writing flow.


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: MEDICAL CANNABIS USE IN THAILAND AFTER ITS LEGALIZATION: A RESPONDENT-DRIVEN SAMPLE SURVEY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: MEDICAL CANNABIS USE IN THAILAND AFTER ITS LEGALIZATION: A RESPONDENT-DRIVEN SAMPLE SURVEY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Well written and well sourced
Experimental design: Well justified and carried out
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: This is a well-written and well-designed study that contributes important information regarding the legalization of medical cannabis. While this journal does not evaluate impact, I do want to comment on this. As more and more jurisdictions move towards various forms of decriminalization/legalization it is important that policy makers have access to good data that helps increase understanding of how people make decisions regarding their cannabis consumption. This piece adds to this data in a positive way. I would be happy for the article to be published as is, but I do have some suggestions that the editor and authors might wish to consider. All of these are monitor and are offered in the spirit of collegiality.

Intro:
Framing of the issue and intro are well done. Provides good information to the international reader. I think lines 318-322 (the history and context elating to legislation) would go better in the intro. I was looking for this information in the intro and was happy to see it at the end, but I moving it to the intro will improve the piece.

I appreciate the justification for this study is not based on “gaps” but on the importance of the information for policy development.

Methods:
Nice description of RDS and justification fro this approach

Line 157 - “drug users” may be accurate but this language is being critiqued for contributing to stigma. Some authors/researchers use PWUD (people who use drugs).  “Consumers of cannabis” would also be fine. I recommend changing “users” to consumers throughout. I think this will hold up better over time and make your work more likely to be cited, especially by a North American audience.

Sample characteristics: For an international audience it would be helpful to know how your participant demographic compares to the population in question. E.g. Is the rate of type of employment (government officer) higher than expected? Does the age of your participants skew in one direction or another?

Line 185 - I suggest: “Of all respondents, 22% had previous used cannabis…” I think "previously" rather than"ever" improves readability

Patterns of cannabis use - Again might want to say cannabis consumption rather than use. Interesting that the majority used oils over raw flower!

Also interesting the low rate of information from physicians and healthcare providers vs Facebook and social media. Important implications for policy.

Opinions towards cannabis-related policies
This is a minor issue but I would rephrase Lines 249 - 253 so that the majority opinions come first (as you have elsewhere). Without a close reading it first seems that the majority want legalization at the same level as narcotics when in fact this is the smallest group.

Overall I am very pleased with this piece. Thank you for the opportunity to review your work. I wish you continued success in your research.


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: MEDICAL CANNABIS USE IN THAILAND AFTER ITS LEGALIZATION: A RESPONDENT-DRIVEN SAMPLE SURVEY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Title: The title identify and cover the main content of the manuscript .

Abstract: adequately state the research objectives, methods, results, conclusions and recommendations.

Introduction: reflect the important content of the manuscript.
Experimental design: The materials, equipment and research procedures described with sufficient detail.
Validity of the findings: Results: Statistical analysis were suitable for the research methodology, and results presented in tables/figures were correct.
Additional comments: I satisfied with all aspects of the paper ; in other words, the manuscript is publishable.


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: MEDICAL CANNABIS USE IN THAILAND AFTER ITS LEGALIZATION: A RESPONDENT-DRIVEN SAMPLE SURVEY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Well done
Experimental design: Well done
Validity of the findings: Well done
Additional comments: Well done


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: AN INTEGRATIVE TAXONOMIC REVISION OF SLUG-EATING SNAKES (SQUAMATA: PAREIDAE: PAREINEAE) REVEALS UNPRECEDENTED DIVERSITY IN INDOCHINA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: 1. – This paper is a major contribution to the difficult systematics of the snake family Pareidae.
It is generally clearly written in professional English (American) language.
2. – Structure of the paper:
- The Introduction is very good and informative.
- The core of the paper is usually very good. However, the problem of the syntypes of P. berdmorei should be addressed.
- The Discussion is very weak. Most parts repeat what has been written in the introduction to the results. The last part, on Conservation, is excellent and would make a better conclusion than the current one.
- The conclusion is really the weakest point of the paper.
3. – The Discussion and Conclusions should be entirely rewritten for 1) reducing the “summary” of your results, 2) avoiding repetitions, 3) providing a true discussion of your results, and 4) present a true conclusion.
These two chapters are really the weak points of your paper, event if some parts are excellent.
4. – The Literature section is very complete and with relevant references
There are mistyping that will be easily corrected.
5. – The structure conforms to PeerJ standards but some parts have to be revised.
6. – All figures are relevant, of high quality, including the phylogenetic trees. Their caption is excellent.
7. - Raw data are supplied and may be accessed online.
Experimental design: 1. – Original primary research within Scope of the journal: yes, without doubt.
2. – Research question well defined, relevant & meaningful: yes, all criteria.
This paper addresses with success (but see below) an important taxonomic problem on a large group of Asian snakes
3. – Rigorous investigation performed to a high technical & ethical standard: yes, highly professional
The Materials and Methods section is complete, well explained and extensive. It shows that the authors perfectly know their subject and state-of-the-art methods.
4. – Methods described with sufficient detail & information to replicate: perfect.
Validity of the findings: Well, here, results, namely the descriptions of new taxa or the resurrections of synonyms, are generally excellent. I agree with most of the results but those linked with the division of Pareas berdmorei into three subspecies. How is it possible to describe a subspecies based on one or two specimens?
I am fully aware of authors’ explanations about the choices of their taxonomic concepts and I understand their rationale for dividing two species into subspecies.
In my opinion, the taxon Pareas carinatus tenasserimicus is a full species, whatever may be its genetic distance with P. c. carinatus.
In contrast, I am not agreeing with the division of Pareas berdmorei into three subspecies:
One, P. b. unicolor, occupies a very disjoint range.
One, P. b. annamiticus (what an ugly name!), is barely distinguishable from P. b. berdomrei. Furthermore, it is described based on two specimens, of which one is even referred to as P. berdmorei cf. annamiticus.
I urge the authors to consider again their taxonomy of P. berdomrei and to not take such conclusions based on so reduced a material. It would be better to state that the phylogeny shows that three lineages are visible on the phylogenetic tree but, based on too few specimens, no taxonomic decision can be taken now.
Of course, I accept the validity of other species and I fully agree on the division of P. carinatus as presented in this paper.
Additional comments: You produced a major work on the systematics of Pareidae.
All my corrections, comments and suggestions appear directly on the PDF, aligned at right except in one table. As a summary:
1) Correct the mistyping and unclear sentences.
2) Please stop writing lengths of specimens at the nearest 0.01. This is very meaningless, as the error in measuring a snake is, at best, 0.5 mm.
2) Re-write both the discussion and conclusion; both may be shortened and better structured. This is a mandatory reviewer’s request.
3) Consider again of the validity of the two subspecies of P. berdmorei, as indicated in the PDF. However, I will not make a case if you retain your subspecies based on one or two specimens. This is just meaningless at present time.
4) Address the problem of the syntypes of P. berdmorei and made valid your designations of lectotypes… they miss one of the article of the Code; see the PDF.

All other comments are in the PDF.


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: AN INTEGRATIVE TAXONOMIC REVISION OF SLUG-EATING SNAKES (SQUAMATA: PAREIDAE: PAREINEAE) REVEALS UNPRECEDENTED DIVERSITY IN INDOCHINA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment.
Experimental design: No comment.
Validity of the findings: No comments.
Additional comments: This manuscript is a high-quality research with a comprehensive review on taxonomic status and species count of slug-eating snakes. The authors clarified the definition of all the genera, subgenera and some species with deep genetic divergence, and further published new taxonomic units.

Most of the comments I list below are just editing problems which could be solved easily with only minor revisions. The only major comment I would argue is the choice of split both Asthenodipsas and Pareas into two subgenera? Or to treat all these clades as independent genus? Nevertheless, I also respect the final decision to remain the clades as subgenera, which helps “enhance taxonomic stability”.

Conclusively, this manuscript is undoubtedly a milestone of research on Pareidae snakes and is with a high value to be published.

Minor comments:

Abstract could be shrunk; the current version is too lengthy (more than 430 words). At the end of the abstract, it could be better to provide a summary of current taxa count of this family.

Line 135. Do you mean Das (2012; 2018) made incorrect identifications? Or do you mean that Das proposed these misidentifications cases in these two references? I think it should be declared more clearly in this sentence.

Line 196. The abbreviation of specimens from National Museum of Natural Science should be “NMNS” instead of “NMNH”. These mistakes also occurred several times in the tables and appendixes; but they are current in Line 2705 and Supplementary file 1.

Lines 2681–2721. I suspect that this section is used to declare the position or the link of open data, not the deposition position of specimens. Furthermore, this information repeated Supplementary file 1, the abbreviation of museums.

Table 2. Currently this table represent the raw data of measurements and counts of each specimen. However, this information is too detailed with redundancy. I suggest to move this table to supporting table, and could be replaced by a new table describing the ranges, means, and variation of these characters.

Supporting files require some rearrangements and organization. I would suggest to put all supplementary Tables and Figures into a single PDF file instead of numerous independent files. Supplemental file 1 (the museum abbreviations) and Supplementary file 2 (the specimen list) could also be incorporated. If sequences have been uploaded to GenBank, Supplementary file 3 (the sequences) could be deleted. All the other collection permissions could be combined as another file. Finally you will have only two or three supplementary files, and this could largely reduce the trouble for a reader to search and switch among different files.

Table S1. Just a gentle and very minor remind that Taiwan is not a part of China. We realized that this political issue is still under debate; but currently it does not belong to the latter. Specimen ID of collection from Taiwan should be NMNS instead of NMNH.

Table S3. Tables do not need vertical lines. I think this might be one of the reasons to combine all these supporting tables into a single file; you could try to unify the format of these tables.

Table S5. Please replace NMNH as NMNS.

Table S12. Please check the format; there are a few unexpected lines under the range of TL, Tal/TL, and SC of P. b. annamiticus.


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: AN INTEGRATIVE TAXONOMIC REVISION OF SLUG-EATING SNAKES (SQUAMATA: PAREIDAE: PAREINEAE) REVEALS UNPRECEDENTED DIVERSITY IN INDOCHINA
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: 1. – This paper is a major contribution to the difficult systematics of the snake family Pareidae.
It is clearly written in professional English (American) language.
2. – Structure of the paper:
- The Introduction is very good and informative.
- The core of the paper is very good throughout.
- The Discussion is now very good and suitable.
- The Conclusion, with its emphasis on conservation, is excellent.
3. – The Literature section is very complete and with relevant references
There are mistyping that will be easily corrected.
5. – The structure conforms to PeerJ standards.
6. – All figures are relevant, of high quality, including the phylogenetic trees. Their caption is excellent.
7. - Raw data are supplied and may be accessed online.
Experimental design: 1. – Original primary research within Scope of the journal: yes, without doubt.
2. – Research question well defined, relevant & meaningful: yes, all criteria.
This paper addresses with success an important taxonomic problem on a large group of Asian snakes
3. – Rigorous investigation performed to a high technical & ethical standard: yes, highly professional
The Materials and Methods section is complete, well explained and extensive. It shows that the authors perfectly know their subject and state-of-the-art methods.
4. – Methods described with sufficient detail & information to replicate: perfect.
Validity of the findings: I agree with the validity of the resurrected or described taxa, either at species or, after having read the authors’ rebuttal response, at subspecies levels. In fact, the authors recognized subspecies mainly based on molecular results while subspecies are usually based on morphological criteria. Anyway, both methods are valid.
I just requested the authors to add a sentence regarding the wide distance between the ranges of P. berdmorei berdmorei and P. b. unicolor as shown on Fig. 1.
Additional comments: You produced a major work on the systematics of Pareidae.
All my corrections, comments and suggestions appear directly in the Word file and, from p. 110 onwards (tables, captions…) on the PDF, aligned at right.

I have only one requirement: please correct the mistyping.
All other comments are in the Word and PDF files


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: DNA BARCODING AND MORPHOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION OF SPINY LOBSTERS IN SOUTH KOREAN WATERS: A NEW RECORD OF PANULIRUS LONGIPES AND PANULIRUS HOMARUS HOMARUS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors have data set, although I noted lack of details on the number of samples used. In addition, the manuscript is clearly written in a professional manner.

The English language could be improved. It would be better if proof reading done by a colleague who is proficient in English and familiar with the subject matter review your manuscript, or contact a professional editing service.
Experimental design: Research question well defined.

Do you have field study permits?

The methodology for DNA work used in this study had been written clearly. Missing info: How many samples had been sequenced per species? Multiple samples sequence data could be anayzed to determine intraspecific genetic diversity (for population at Jeju Isalnd).

Similarly, referring to morphological examination, there is no statement saying how many samples had been examined per species. I could argue that the variations in morphology -differences between Jeju  sample with George and Holthuis (1965) is just a coincidence (if only one sample had been examined).
Validity of the findings: Morphological examination findings had been presented well, with photographs and labels. DNA data had been analysed according to standard procedure.  The only information need is the number of samples examined in this study, per species.
Additional comments: Abstract :  good
Introduction : good
Materials & methods -Indicate how many samples had been used in DNA work and morphological work.

Results : Line 205, you missed a dot after ‘spines’?

Discussion: Good discussion. Minor corrections needed for example you can use word ‘reciprocally monophyletic’ , 'phylogenetic species concept', etc. in explaining the phylogenetic tree topology. Again, if you only examined one sample per species, discussion section should be written with caution.
You named each clade with genus' name, which then confusing whether you should used italic and capital each word or otherwise. Perhaps use clade A, clade B, etc., instead of clade Japonicus, etc. to solve this confusion.

Conclusion
Conclusion should be short and sweet, highlighting your best result/achievement and how it impact scientific knowledge /management /general public.
“Based on morphological data and COI gene sequence analysis, four species namely…….. with first record of ??? in Jeju Island. COI gene information is useful to aid species id? This info will help in….Future study need to involve more samples??? In order to get …..”


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: DNA BARCODING AND MORPHOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION OF SPINY LOBSTERS IN SOUTH KOREAN WATERS: A NEW RECORD OF PANULIRUS LONGIPES AND PANULIRUS HOMARUS HOMARUS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This is a straightforward study describing two new records of spiny lobster from the genus Panulirus based on molecular and morphological examination. The experimental is mostly acceptable given the simplicity of the study, though not fully competent. The major limitation is the scope of the study is small, with only a few sites and one specimen from each of the four species. Therefore, though I am convinced that P. longpipes and P h. homarus represent new record to Korean water, I am not convinced by most of the discussions concerning the genetic divergence or morphological variations for the studied specimens compared to the data in GenBank or descriptions in literature. I will leave it to the editor’s call for whether two new records can justify a paper in PeerJ, of which should fit boarder readers’ interest, but I do think substantial revisions shall be made in the introduction and discussion to focus more on the solid finding whether than inconclusive descriptions on genetic divergence. The authors should focus on the recent finding on biodiversity on S Korean water and/or potential for range expansion of more tropical species to Korea (either natural or anthropogenic).
Experimental design: Simple study, so no major fault in methodology except sample size is small.
Validity of the findings: As aforementioned, the two records should be valid, but those discussions on genetic divergence, morphological variations are inconclusive given the small sample size or irrelevant to major context. For example, “drifting of P. japonicus” individual from Taiwan to Korea” is apparently misleading and erroneous because specimens of P. japonicus split into two clades in the tree by the authors (one with Jeju, another the other with Japan). One of this may represent cryptic species (to be confirmed). This may partially explain the morphological variation from the holotype (which is from Japan).

It looks strange to me that “PL was genetically confirmed as Panulirus longipes”; “The PS specimen was clustered into the Stimpsoni clade with P. stimpsoni”. The abbreviation is by species ID so apparently a circular reasoning here.

Table 2: descriptions for the other two species found in Korean water (penicilatus and versicolor that were not sampled) shall be included for comparison to ease the readers.
Additional comments: Introduction includes a large portion of information about Panulirus phylogeny or population genetics that is not relevant to the current study, whilst not much background for recent discovery or biodiversity in Korean S water is mentioned.


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: DNA BARCODING AND MORPHOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION OF SPINY LOBSTERS IN SOUTH KOREAN WATERS: A NEW RECORD OF PANULIRUS LONGIPES AND PANULIRUS HOMARUS HOMARUS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript is written with some grammatical errors. English language should be improved. Please change and just use Panulirus homarus (PH) or P. homarus in the manuscript because I found many mistakes regarding that scientific name. The literature reference and data provided are sufficient.
Experimental design: The research experimental design is sufficient and reliable. This research is very important as there is very limited data on the marine lobster in the database.
Validity of the findings: The manuscript reported the finding of the new species of lobsters in Korean waters which are important for the future studies of marine lobsters. The findings are reliable due to the identification based on morphological and molecular approaches.
Additional comments: Due to many species of Panulirus sp. with diverse morphological characteristics. if possible, I just want to suggest the authors classify back the species of these four lobsters (PH, PS, PJ, and PL) based on other references together with George and Holthuis (1965) to avoid misidentification.


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: DNA BARCODING AND MORPHOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION OF SPINY LOBSTERS IN SOUTH KOREAN WATERS: A NEW RECORD OF PANULIRUS LONGIPES AND PANULIRUS HOMARUS HOMARUS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The revise version is clear and unambiguous. The authors had used English professional service. This manuscript also contains adequate literature references. The article structure is good  with clear figures and tables.
Experimental design: This manuscript is an original primary research, within the aim and scope of the journal.  It had been successful in filling the identified knowledge gap. It follows the requirement of science technical and ethical standard.  Methods are described with sufficient details.
Validity of the findings: The findings are valid, useful for broad audience because of its biodiversity theme (and conservation). Good data with robust analysis and good discussion. Conclusions are well-written.
Additional comments: I am happy with the improvement made by the authors. Well done!


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: DNA BARCODING AND MORPHOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION OF SPINY LOBSTERS IN SOUTH KOREAN WATERS: A NEW RECORD OF PANULIRUS LONGIPES AND PANULIRUS HOMARUS HOMARUS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors have done a good job in revising the manuscript and included more sequences to strengthen the finding. i think the manuscript is acceptable, and i only have two additional comments on discussion for the authors to consider:

1/ line 327 -333: this is apparently unnecessary as the study mostly re-analyzed previously published sequence data for most lobster species, so it is not surprising that the inferred phylogeny is more or less the same. Line 329-333 is clearly too descriptive and can be deleted.

2/ line 390-412: the discussion here is pre-mature, Lavery et al 2014 already discussed this issue in detail with much boarder sampling. The authors only included one new P. homorus sequence but do a complicated (and somehow confusing) discussion that i think will only have negative impact on the manuscript quality.
Experimental design: It is a reasonably well performed study.
Validity of the findings: The finding is valid, though some discussions are irrelevant as stated above.
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: IDENTIFYING AND PRIORITISING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION ACTIONS FOR GREATER ONE-HORNED RHINOCEROS (RHINOCEROS UNICORNIS) CONSERVATION IN NEPAL
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: English writing is excellent. Research is well designed with a clear structure and findings. Detailed are in the additional comments section.
Experimental design: Well designed. Detailed are in the additional comments section.
Validity of the findings: The findings are valid. Details are in the additional comments sections.
Additional comments: Comments:
 Under reviewed manuscript aims to identify and prioritize climate change adaption actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros conservation in Nepal. The authors have done a good job of exploring adaptions actions and provided a robust discussion, which is directly relevant to the policy planning implantation. I have the following comments for the improvement of this manuscript.

Introduction
 The authors have done a fair job of describing the situation. However, I see a need for one paragraph that describes ‘existing knowledge’ from other countries (assuming that this is novel for rhinoceros in Nepal) or for other animals. Please add the relevant literature on it. This paragraph can be a second last paragraph just before the one starts at page number 88.

Also, it may be worth pointing how strategies may be similar or different between herbivores, carnivores, and Omnivores. From a management standpoint, it is nearly impossible to make unique strategies for each animal. For example, in the Chitwan National Park, elephants, rhinos, and Tigers are the three majestic large animals. Introducing this reality in the introduction section and later elaboration on the discussion section may be of interest to broader protected area management readership.

Results:

The results section needs major revamping. Why you are only describing the findings from key informant analysis?  As of now, the half-page results section is very confusing as it is a hodgepodge of everything. Please make subsections or dedicate at least 'one paragraph result' for each of the 5 methods that were used for data collection. For example, describe what did you find from 1) literature review, 2) key informant survey, 3) focus group discussion, 4) expert consultation, and 5) stakeholder consultation. If the findings from the literature review are difficult to elaborate on, please delete them from the method section. Indeed, this verbiage can be safely removed from here and put in the introduction section to identify the knowledge gap.

Discussion/conclusion:

I think verbiage in paragraphs between 285-303 can go to the results section with some modifications. This sounds like the finding coming from the literature review.

The information in lines 305-324 is highly management relevant. It may be worthwhile to provide similar information from neighboring Indian national parks as there was flooding on the Indian side as well. This information will be of interest to park personnel from India.

I also suggest acknowledging that some of the adaption actions are difficult to implement. These protected areas are bottlenecked between large human settlements where the majority of Nepali citizens reside. While the expansion of existing protected areas be an ideal adaption action, it is not likely to be implemented in a heavily populated country.  While I appreciate the conservation mindset of the authors, I simply do not see species-specific protected area expansion being practically possible in the heavily populated Terai region of Nepal. The fact is that people vote to elect lawmakers (animals don’t) and resettlement is a practically very difficult task. Please acknowledge this reality of the country in the discussion section.  In doing so, please add a paragraph highlighting what adoption actions could be universally useful for most mega animals in Nepal. As you have pointed, Banke National Park is not suitable for rhinoceros habitat but it is suitable for Tiger habitat. Tiger habitat is also being impacted by climate change. Therefore, broad-based climate adoption actions should receive the highest priority. The added verbiage will add on to make this outlet a management-relevant article.

With these comments withstanding, the authors have done a good job in discussion and the detailed management recommendations. Overall, I enjoyed reading the article.


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: IDENTIFYING AND PRIORITISING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION ACTIONS FOR GREATER ONE-HORNED RHINOCEROS (RHINOCEROS UNICORNIS) CONSERVATION IN NEPAL
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The paper is very clear and highlights the predicament that conservation management has to confront in helping species adapt to climate change. An evaluation of the adaptation options helps conservation management prioritise key ones to focus on and often enables action through the various methods of engagement employed in the study. Excellent use of language throughout the article. The introduction and abstract does justice to the rationale beefed up by sufficient relevant literature.

The article flow and structure is adequate and simple for the reader to follow with solicited knowledge from the various methods demonstrating that Climate change impacts on rhinoceros have already started impacting their habitat in Nepal and that the shift in habitat suitability has been shifting westward. Climate change adaptation actions most relevant for rhinoceros conservation in Nepal is discussed and ten actions that are of top priority have been presented.

The raw data and analysis process has been shared and is adequate to arrive at the conclusions of the study.
Experimental design: The experiments design is sound and clearly articulated. The area of species climate change adaptation requires interventions from conservation management and as such very few studies exist that captures the process of gearing them towards future interventions. A review of the key adaptation actions is solicited and conservation management buy-in is crucial. The methods are detailed and repeatable.
Validity of the findings: I am satisfied with the manuscript as findings are supported by statistically robust analysis. The discussion of each adaptation option is robust leading to practical recommendations.
Additional comments: No additional comment.


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: IDENTIFYING AND PRIORITISING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION ACTIONS FOR GREATER ONE-HORNED RHINOCEROS (RHINOCEROS UNICORNIS) CONSERVATION IN NEPAL
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: This paper investigates the very important topic of climate change adaptation for threatened species, in this case, the greater one-horned rhinoceros. While the concept is sound, and the paper is well written, the paper presents no new information and is not formulated in a particularly helpful way. The paper details a series of consultations on one-horned rhino climate change vulnerability and potential adaptation options. Most people consulted believe the species to be climate change vulnerable. However, though the authors mention presenting vulnerability assessment methods at their expert workshops, no details of how rhino climate change vulnerability had been assessed are presented. It is unclear to what extent the rhinos being investigated are believed to be vulnerable or why. The results do show that workshop participants believe the animals to be climate vulnerable. However, there is no basis for these conclusions and no details of the mechanism of vulnerability are provided. There are a number of papers detailing how climate change vulnerability assessment for species should be conducted (e.g. Foden et al. 2019). The method followed should be referenced and details provided.

Adaptation options were discussed at these workshops and some very generic adaptation responses are ranked. The discussion then covers some of the adaptation responses in more detail. A large emphasis is placed on the experience of people consulted and the multiple steps in the process, but very little on what is known of climate change impacts on rhinos and what experts think can meaningfully be done in this regard in the country of interest.

I would suggest that a complete restructuring is required to provide the reader with a better understanding of the context and also to ensure the results can be used in a more meaningful way. I would rework and present it as follows:

First provide some background on the species: what habitats does it occur in, what climate-related changes are expected or being observed in these areas and why is the species believed to be climate-vulnerable? There appears to have been a study in this regard (Pant et al. 2020 is cited), so the key findings should be detailed along with the projected climate changes for the area. For example, in the discussion, it appears that higher temperatures are linked to snowmelt, which may cause flooding in some areas – where is this a problem, and how frequently are such floods predicted?
Linking aspects of vulnerability to a framework such as the one in Foden et al. 2019 may be useful in this regard.
[In terms of methods, also detail which of this information was provided to the workshop participants?]

The results should focus on each of the adaptation options presented and why they might be useful to rhinos in this region. Which adaptation options speak to which vulnerabilities? For example, the two key vulnerabilities that emerge in the discussion appear to be susceptibility to flash floods and loss of habitat to bush encroachment (not a climate change effect, but driven by CO2). Linking the mechanism of vulnerability with particular adaptations can assist in prioritizing and tailoring such adaptation locally.

The discussion can then focus on detailing a location and species-specific adaptation plan based on the identified priorities. How can the highest priority actions be integrated spatially and why did experts not rate some options (e.g. protected area expansion) as a high priority – i.e. local constraints. As it stands, the generic adaptation options we all know about are just rehashed, with one or two weak links to the local context.

Reading between the lines, I would imagine that adaptation would include construction of flood refugia in floodplains (detail which areas these are); Use of prescribed burning and alien clearing to maintain preferred habitat; metapopulation management such that animals are transported from high-risk areas (which are these) to areas of lower risk (where are these and what makes these areas lower risk)? All of this needs to be contextualized in terms of local predictions of climate change.

Specific comments
Line 52 – there is a new IPCC report out. If possible cite the latest figures
Methods – Figures 4-6 show results and should not be referred to in the methods.

Figure 4 and 5 could probably be combined. Also, for figure 4 – the way this is phrased assumes that changes in rhino habitat have taken place – was no change not an option? Nothing up to this point indicated that a change should have been expected? The population had recovered, but poaching and general land degradation remain a threat. One might presume that these factors could also impact on the rhinos. The way that the question is phrased seems odd when no evidence of change has been presented.

Figure 6 – explain in the caption what 0 versus 8 on the priority scale means – which is high?

Focus group discussions
Lines 190-191 Which methods were explained for assessing species climate change vulnerability?
How was exposure (current and future) to climate change evaluated or understood by workshops participants?

Acronyms should be defined. Some like IUCN and WWF are well known, but others like DNPWC and NTNC are not.

Lines 198-211 (Expert consultation) could be summarized to “The outcomes of the adaptation workshop were validated by 9 experts from a range of NGOs in a series of face-to-face meetings.”
Results - It is not clear on what basis people believe changes in habitat have been due to climate change. The researchers have not even detailed that changes in habitat have occurred. Has this been measured? Over what time period? There are a huge number of unknowns as well as drivers of habitat change, so asking these questions of experts seems unfair and preemptive/leading.

Line 261 – no evidence of climate change impact on rhinos is presented whatsoever. In what way have experts and stakeholders deemed rhinos to be vulnerable to climate change? Which aspects of climate change are of concern?

Identifying broad classes of adaptation is not useful. Aside from 3i, Table 1 lists key generic climate change responses that are very well known and adds nothing new to show what can be done for this species in this area. Where are new protected areas needed? What are the priority areas for corridors – can these species even be expected to move across these large areas? In what way can wetland, fire and grassland management be used to aid rhinos? What type of habitats and fire regimes are required?

275 – what constitutes good rhino habitat and is climate change expected to change the distribution of such habitat westwards? On what grounds are experts making these decisions?

Lines 305-318 – this sort of information (details of mounds built to provide high ground in the case of flooding) would be useful upfront in the introduction, then the use and application of this form of adaptation in the study region can be detailed in the results and discussion

Paragraph beginning 326 – impacts of climate change and CO2 are in fact not one and the same, therefore bush encroachment or similar cannot be said to be driven by climate change. Be careful of phrasing. This paragraph gives the impression that it is not climate change so much as alien species and bush encroachment that may be threatening the rhino. The required responses would therefore be different, compared to concerns of more frequent extreme weather events or rising temperatures.

Line 355 – Are there areas in Nepal currently not protected that do contain suitable habitat for the species? This is the key question to ask when considering protected area expansion as an adaptation option.

Paragraph beginning 357 – are the protected areas fenced?

The conclusions are currently a repeat of table 1 and figure 6. To be more informative, these should be presented in order of perceived importance.
Experimental design: It is not clear how the expert workshops were run and what information was presented. This is key to informing what the experts indicated in terms of climate change adaptation.
Validity of the findings: I am sure that all the adaptations identified would be useful for rhinos in the face of climate change. There is however not enough detail in the introduction and methods on the type of threats faced and the information provided to experts to come to these conclusions.
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: IDENTIFYING AND PRIORITISING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION ACTIONS FOR GREATER ONE-HORNED RHINOCEROS (RHINOCEROS UNICORNIS) CONSERVATION IN NEPAL
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors’ revisions have made the manuscript much clearer. The examples added in the discussion are particularly helpful. The process flow of developing the recommended adaptation options is, however, still a little unclear, but easily rectifiable. Updating Figure 2 would go a long way to correcting this. Several rounds of engagements were held with different groups of stakeholders and experts, each producing adaptation options and/or prioritizing them. How these options feed into subsequent steps is however unclear. As a first step, I would include the number of people involved at each stage and the number of actions identified in the boxes within Figure 2 (refer to the attached example). Secondly, how the actions produced at each step flow into subsequent stages needs to be made more explicit through the use of arrows.

For example, in the initial stage, it appears that 11 actions are suggested. At the refining stage, four are proposed, which appear to be in addition to the 11 from the initial stage – I assume all 11 were considered and supported? The finalizing stage appears to have 15 + 5 options – presumably, the 15 are the 11 plus the 4, but this is unclear? The text suggests that the four options from the key informant surveys fed directly into the stakeholder discussions, but what about the steps in between? – I think it’s just the text that is misleading – see comments on the document itself.

With regards to the figure, I would almost suggest removing the boxes on the left (initial through to prioritizing phase) and just showing how different engagements and sets of adaptation options feed into one another using appropriate arrows. I have included an example of the type of diagram you might want to use (it may require further edits and updates) within the manuscript PDF I am attaching.

It is not clear in the last step of stakeholder engagement why only 10 options are prioritized. Is this because some were grouped together or because some were not prioritized and therefore no longer considered? If some were dropped off, how was the cut-off decided? Perhaps update text and figure to make this process clearer.

Other comments:
I have made a number of minor text corrections and suggestions on the document itself, including the removal of duplicated text.
Experimental design: See above comments on edits to figure 2.
Validity of the findings: No further comments
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: IDENTIFICATION AND EXPRESSION ANALYSIS OF THE SUCROSE SYNTHASE GENE FAMILY IN POMEGRANATE (PUNICA GRANATUM L.)
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Details about RNAseq should be presented. In materials and methods, it should be discussed about tissues, replications and sequencing analysis. In results sections, please present about DEGs and other details of transcriptome.
Experimental design: n materials and methods, it should be discussed about tissues, replications and sequencing analysis.
Validity of the findings: In results sections, please present about DEGs and other details of transcriptome.
Additional comments: No additional comments