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 DIFFERENTIAL EXPRESSION OF PIRNAS IN THE GONADS OF AMUR STURGEON (ACIPENSER SCHRENCKII)
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: English is clear enough throughout the manuscript

The authors used small RNA sequencing and microrrays to identify sturgeon piRNAs by small RNA sequencing in Illumina HiSeq and validate their expression with microarray.

Knowledge related to sexual development in sturgeon may have a high economic impact in farming profit. Thus, I agree that it is worth to study sexual development in sturgeons.

In the introduction (lines 83 to 89) they emphasize the difficulties derived from the instability of sex development, the lack of knowledge regarding sex chromosomes and the difficulty of molecular studies. I do not see why all this facts support that sturgeons are good models for studying the mechanism of sex determination in vertebrates. Model organisms should facilitate work. I suggest removing the sentence in lines 85-86 suggesting that they are a good model.

At the end of the introduction (lines 90 and above) they introduce the role of piRNAs in germline development and transposon silencing but the most recent citation in this part is form 2015. There are more recent reviews to cite such as doi: 10.1242/dev.161786 or doi: 10.1530/REP-18-0218 for more different possible roles of piRNAs.

Figures are not of sufficient quality. They mix different fonts. For instance Fig 1A has different fonts in X and Y axes and Y axe label is misspelled, Fig 1B also mix different fonts, some of the number are blurry (as 58% and 30% in 2C) and other labels are difficult to read. Bar graph in Fig. 3 is too wide and  GO terms can be hard to read. Maybe a shorter version with the most relevant term could be easiest to read and the complete list of GO Terms can be provided as supplementary material, arranged as a table with terms and number of genes instead of a bar graph. Fig 4 is also unreadable.
Experimental design: The experimental design is correct and the research is within the scope of the journal. The authors used small RNA sequencing and microrrays to identify sturgeon piRNAs by small RNA sequencing in Illumina HiSeq and validate their expression with microarray. All the methods are not fully described but they cite other papers for more information related to the methodology, providing sufficient information to replicate. The main contribution of this paper is to provide bulk data of putative piRNAs in sturgeon.
Validity of the findings: The RNAseq piRNAs data provided are novel and may contribute to more research in the future. However, the further analyses presented in this paper are not really relevant. They show that some piRNAs have sex-specific expression and they suppose this is as a proof that sturgeon sex development is regulated by sex specific piRNA expression, but there is no support for such a statement as correlation do not means causality. They also perform a GO terms enrichment analysis showing enrichment in terms related to ovary or testis function and development. Although this may give some clues about what piRNAs may deserve further analysis, it does not demonstrate that they are really involved in such processes. The paper is not mature enough to be published. The GO and KEGG additional analysis of the data may provide clues regarding what piRNAs may have a real biological role and additional experiments should be done to corroborate that in fact they have. If such a proof is found it would demonstrate that these RNAseq data are really useful and that the analyses performed are able to identify biologically relevant piRNAs. I understand that performing these type of studies in sturgeon may be challenging. This is another reason of why they are not a good organism model.
Additional comments: The RNAseq data are novel and deserve publication. I agree that they may be useful in discovering relevant biological roles of particular piRNAs in some of the processes mentioned in the paper. I suggest that the authors use the preliminary results of their analyses to identify at least one example of biologically relevant piRNA and demonstrate its role, otherwise all the statements regarding the putative role of the identified piRNAs in relevant biological processes are merely speculative.


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 DIFFERENTIAL EXPRESSION OF PIRNAS IN THE GONADS OF AMUR STURGEON (ACIPENSER SCHRENCKII)
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: 'no comment'
Experimental design: 'no comment'
Validity of the findings: 'no comment'
Additional comments: The paper has much improved from the previous version.  The methods now contain more details necessary to be able to reproduce the results. The authors have also made a considerable effort to highlight the speculative nature of the analyzed piRNAs.

Below, I list some typos in order of appearance that could be corrected:

line 38> analyze not "analysis"> "...(GO) database and KEGG pathway database were searched subsequently to analysis the potential bio-function of sturgeon piRNAs"

line 91> "while" is misued. You can just delete it.

line 130> "three males and 3 females" > just use one notation type, either as a word or using numeric characters.

line 153> "successively" should be "successive"
"being" in 1), 2) and 3) is unnecessary

line 159> "previously" should read "previous"

line 248> "Comparing the total read counts of piRNA with that of miRNA expressed in sturgeon testis and ovary samples, we obtained a similar ratio of 4.7:1~5.5:1. Moreover, both piRNA (1:1) and miRNA (1.2:1) showed an equal ratio in testes vs. ovaries (Table 1)."

The authors should give an interpretation to this observation as well.
e.g. "This clearly indicates putative piRNAs are far more abundant class of small RNAs in both testis and ovaries compared to miRNAs."

While it is OK to compare read counts within the same sample for two different small RNA classes (since library size cancels out), it is not OK to compare read counts of the same class between two different samples. Each sample has a different library size that should be taken into account when making such comparisons. I suggest either correcting the "piRNA (1:1) and miRNA (1.2:1)" ratios or removing this sentence from the manuscript.

line 254> The authors could provide a total number of currently known genes in this specie for a context.

line 271> "Moreover, a statistical difference was detected in size distribution of sex-specific piRNAs (average 27.26 nt in testes vs. 27.78 nt in ovaries, t test)."
The authors fail to report the p-value. In any case, even if you see the "statistically significant" difference in length, it s unclear what it would mean to be 0.5 nt different. I suggest removing this statement from the manuscript.

line 281> the notation "|logFC| of 1~8.5" looks odd. Better to write it as: "1 < |logFC| < ~8.5". Similarly, "|logFC| of 1~4.1" can be written as "1 < |logFC| < ~4.1".


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 DIFFERENTIAL EXPRESSION OF PIRNAS IN THE GONADS OF AMUR STURGEON (ACIPENSER SCHRENCKII)
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The paper and figures have been improved but some paragraphs still need some rewording.

“Putative piRNA” are redundantly repeated all over the manuscript. The sentences should be reworded to avoid this repetition. Suggestions for possible rewriting of some text follows:

Line 41..: A total of 875,679 putative sturgeon piRNAs were obtained, including 93 homologous to known piRNAs and hundreds showing sex-specific and sex-biased expression.

Line 43...: Further analysis showed that they are predominant in both the ovaries and testes and those with a sex-specific expression patern are nearly equaly distributed betwen sexes. This may imply a relevant role in stungeon gonadal development.

Line 48…:  KEGG pathway and GO annotation analyses  indicated that they may be related to sturgeon reproductive processes.

Once it is stated in line 41 that they are “putative piRNAs” ther is no need to repeat many more times in the same paragraph.

Line 191…: To validate the expression of putative piRNAs identified by Illumina sequencing, we selected: 1) 1,092 that exhibited significantly different expression in ovaries vs. testes with │logFC│≥1.5, P ≤ 0.01, Padj ≤ 0.05, and read counts > 10; and 2) 779 highly expressed with read counts 50 ~ 4,646 in ovaries or 50 ~ 8177 in testes. For each of the six RNA samples (3 ovaries and 3 testes, extracted above) assessed, 4 µg of total RNA were used to hybridize with the microarray chip.

Line 250…: Further analysis indicated that their rate of sex-specific expression (only expressed in ovary or testis) was up to 87%

Line 252…: and the ratio of ovary- vs. testis-specific putative piRNAs was nearly 1:1 (43.99%, 385,222/875,679)

Line 254…: Moreover, we found a simmilar percentage of sense and antisense strand putative piRNAs (42.99%, 376,487/875,679 vs. 57.01%, 499,192/875,679, respectively)

Line 305…:  A total of 311 showed significantly biased expression between sexes

Line 308…: 124 where specifically up-regulated..

Line 313…: In contrast, the most expressed n the ovaries was ASY-piR-122…

Line 315…: Moreover, 1,335 were co-expressed in both the testes and ovaries…

Line 316…:  Further analysis indicated no significant difference in size distribution among sex-biased  putative piRNAs…

Line 318..: The Illumina sequencing and microarray expression of putative piRNAs was especially correlated for 311 sex-biased piRNAs (r = 0.489, P = 0.000).

Line 331…:  and hundreds of them showed sex-specific (only expressed in sturgeon testis or ovary) and sex-biased expression, validated by microarray.

Line 352..: A total of 875,679 sturgeon putative piRNAs were identified, including 93 homologous to known piRNAs.

Line 358…: Approximately 86% of reads were sequenced only once,…

Line 368…:  We show that both expression and distribution on gene regions of putative piRNAs are equally distributed between testis and ovary (Figure 1B and 1C).

Line 370…:  Significant differences in the sizes of sturgeon sex-specific putative piRNAs (read counts ≥ 10) were observed (t test, P <0.01), as also demonstrated in human sex-specific piRNAs, which show gender differences in size distribution and thus affect binding with Piwi proteins (Williams et al., 2015).

Line 374…: Furthermore, the prevailing expression of putative piRNAs in gonads has also been found in many other organisms (……) and provides insight into …….
Line 386…:  The predominant and equivalent male and female sturgeon gonads expression of putative piRNAs suggest……

Line 394…: Data showed significantly sex-biased expression, including 124 that were specifically highly expressed in ovaries and 187 in testes (Figure S2 and Table S5).

Line 412..: Further enrichment analysis indicated that they probably participate in reproduction, mainly via sex-specific expression (Figure 3 and Table S4).
Experimental design: As in the previous version the experimental design is correct
Validity of the findings: It has been made clear that the piRNAs are only putative because no evidence of biological significance has been provided.
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: ADAPTIVE AND DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION OF THE S-PHASE KINASE-ASSOCIATED PROTEIN 1-LIKE FAMILY IN ARABIDOPSIS THALIANA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Overall the structure of the paper is well-organized and supporting literature is well referenced. The figures are high-quality, clear, relevant and are well labelled.
Experimental design: The experimental design is clear and the authors clearly stated their hypothesis and the results presented by the authors are rigorous.
Validity of the findings: No comment.
Additional comments: I only have a few minor comments for the authors:
1. For Figure 2A, since the the microarray intensities for ASK1 and ASK2 are roughly three logs higher than ASK3~14, it is better to break the Y-axis at 0.1 to visualize the expression level of ASK3~14 better. By using a continuous y-axis, the expression value of the ASK3~14 appears to be zero, which is not the case. The same is true for Figure 2C. I recommend to break the Y-axis at 50 to better visualize the RPKM for ASK3~14.

2. For Figure 2C and 2D, please change the Y-axis label to "RPKM". RPKM stands for Reads Per Kilobase of transcript, per Million mapped reads. RPKM does not mean the counts for all RNA.

3. For Figure 4A, latitudinal variation of ASK1 expression, the left panel is redundant. I would suggest to remove the left panel and keep the right panel for 4A.


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: ADAPTIVE AND DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION OF THE S-PHASE KINASE-ASSOCIATED PROTEIN 1-LIKE FAMILY IN ARABIDOPSIS THALIANA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The overall structure of the manuscript is appropriate. The Introduction gives a good basic description of the ubiquitin-26S proteasome system and gives, for the most part, sufficient background information about SCF complexes (see comments below). The rationale for the work is clearly presented. The Results and Discussion sections are well-organized, logical, and, for the most part, easy to follow (with the exception of some grammar and phrasing issues; see below). The Materials and Methods section gives sufficient details of the analyses. The figures are, for the most part, clear and well-composed.

Some of the grammar and phrasing is a bit rough and there are several typographical errors I noticed. The manuscript should be carefully checked for these issues. I give some examples here, but I have not highlighted every problem I saw.

Specific critiques:

1. The second sentence of the Abstract (lines 31-33) is structured a bit confusingly. Do the authors mean that genome size is extremely varied, and that there is a great deal of polymorphism seen in large gene families?

2. Line 36: "first provided" could be "provide". Also, I am not sure what "polymorphic evidence" is.

3. Line 37: "of" could be "in".

4. Lines 48, 49: I don't believe that the second sentence of the Introduction (about proteins being involved in mechanical movement) adds anything important.

5. Line 102: "the rapid evolutionary process" could be " rapid evolution".

6. Since the fourth paragraph of the Introduction mentions the Type II Skp1 genes, it would be good to say something about the differences between Type I and II Skp1 genes in the Introduction.

7. Lines 111-113: The "These datasets provide a unique opportunity to……" sentence is rough. Maybe "…fine-tune the phylogenetic relationships and fixation processes of rapidly-evolving genes in plants, which may help better define their functional constraints.".

8. Lines 113-116. I don't understand the "Because the size of the Skp1…." sentence. What is the connection between the smaller size of the Skp1 gene family and focusing the analysis on Arabidopsis?

9. Line 180: "…towards each species…" could be "…between species…".

10. Line 182: The text says 18 common ancestors of the Arabidopsis Skp1 genes, but Figure 1C shows 19.

11. The caption for Figure 1: "Statistical significance equal or greater than 50%....". Also (line 10), "a Skp1 gene..", not "an".

12. The graph in figure 2C clearly shows the variation in expression between different thaliana accessions for ASK1 and ASK2, but the y-axis scale makes it difficult to see if other ASK genes also show much variation. The Results text (lines 229-231) suggests that those ASK genes do, but it's hard to see as the data is presented.

13. Figure 3 caption (line 553): "… deviates from neutral mutations…"

14. Is Table S1 missing ASK6 for the OrthoMCL12 group? Also, the Aha and Aly sequences seem to have been switched for OrthoMCL groups 4-13.

15. The ASK18, AlySkp08, and AhaSkp07 protein sequences in the alignment in Figure S1 all are shown to contain 22 amino acids N-terminal to a methionine that corresponds to the start methionine in the other Skp sequences. I checked Phytozome and TAIR and, in both, the ASK18 protein is predicted to start with the methionine. Is this a mistake? Did the authors change the annotation?
Experimental design: Previous publications have used bioinformatic approaches to explore the Skp1 family in the plant kingdom (ex. Kong et al., 2007). What is new in this manuscript is analysis of the family in three closely related Arabidopsis species and in multiple accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana, allowing for investigation of evolution of the family over a shorter evolutionary time-span. A tree based on more closely-related sequences allows the authors to better pinpoint evolutionary events that gave rise to the family variation seen in Arabidopsis. As an example, the tree generated by the authors allows them to speculate that a single retroposition event gave rise to all current intron-less Skp1 genes in Arabidopsis. Given this data, the authors are able to analyze the evolutionary constraints on the ASK genes and the degree of sequence polymorphism in them and correlate those findings with gene structure (intron-containing vs. intron-less). The authors also take advantage of recent gene expression studies to explore the expression of the ASK genes in more detail than was previously possible. Collectively, the results presented here do contribute new knowledge to the field.

The question whether many of the ASKs are functional or, if they are, how important they are to SCF function, is one that has been present in the field since the gene family was first characterized. The work done here cannot directly answer those questions, but I believe the analyses and data presented do contribute useful new data that will help the field as these questions are further pursued.

I believe the Materials and Methods section does sufficiently explain the methodologies used.
Validity of the findings: Overall, I agree with the authors in their general conclusions from the data, though I do have some questions as well as concerns about some specific interpretations/conclusions. See the comments following:

1. The authors appear to claim that most Arabidopsis Skp1 genes duplicated in a 5-10 mya time-frame, based on the fact there are distinct clades with sequences from all three species and the timing of when the species split (Lines 164-166). I am confused about this. Couldn't the duplications have occurred significantly earlier than 5-10 mya and produced the same type of groupings in the tree? Is there some additional piece of information I am missing?

2. Lines 169-170: Do the authors mean that the three ancestor loci were produced by retroposition and then each was further duplicated by tandem duplication? The tandem duplication events indicated on the tree (Figure 1B) occur after the a, c, and d loci arose.

3. Several predicted Skp1 proteins (e.g. ASK6, AK7, AlySkp14, AhaSkp6) lack sequence seen in other family members. In my experience this can happen when there are frameshifts or in-frame stop codons in (otherwise normal-looking) coding regions. Gene structure prediction algorithms sometimes attempt to avoid these (by predicting an intron that skips the coding sequence over the frameshift or stop, for instance), leading to coding regions that are predicted to encode a protein lacking sequence that is present in all other family members. Could the same be happening here and are the genes apparently encoding these proteins actually pseudogenes? Is there genomic sequence present that appears to encode the missing parts of the proteins?

4. Partial sequences for Skp1 genes can be found in the Arabidopsis thaliana genome (Kong, 2007). Did the authors encounter similar partial sequences in the lyrata and halleri genomes? I'm particularly interested in the halleri genome, as the authors calculated substantial loss of Skp1 genes since the split from lyrata. Is there any residue of those lost genes in the halleri genome? I'd be surprised that there is so much sequence change that those genes are no longer recognizable. Is the likely mechanism of loss complete deletion?

5. I would temper the statement that high expression of selected ASK genes in seeds (lines 224-225) indicates an important role for SCF complexes in seed development. That may be the case, but I'm not sure that high expression alone confirms it.

6. The connection between increased nucleotide polymorphism in the -500 to -1600 region and increased expression in ASK1 seems tenuous to me. While the expression of ASK1 in the group of accessions from the 45-50 latitudes is statistically significantly higher than the 40-45 and 50-55 groups, the absolute difference seems to be small. There is also a lot of variation among the individual accessions. Is there some more direct way to compare nucleotide diversity with expression, without using the latitude groups as an intermediary? Can you bin the accessions based on expression level (say, high, medium, low) and then compare nucleotide diversity between those groups? The latitude binning strikes me as arbitrary.

7 I'm not sure that testing a single ASK1 and a single ASK2 for F-box interactions really allows for the conclusion that neutral polymorphic mutations in ASK2 genes do not significantly affect the F-box/ASK interaction. It seems to me that you need to test a group of them to really show that. Any one ASK2 may by chance have mutations that do not affect the strength of the interaction even if, as a group, the relaxation of selection pressure results in a greater likelihood of loss of F-box interaction. It seems the best experiment would be to test a series of both ASK1 and ASK2 proteins from the different accessions and show that the greater variability in the ASK2 proteins does not affect these interactions. Perhaps I am not understanding the author's reasoning correctly. I do realize the large amount of work testing more ASKs would entail. Perhaps the authors could moderate their conclusion by stating that their Y2H analyses are a starting point for testing this hypothesis.

8. I'm not sure I agree with the heading in the Discussion (lines 395-396) that the large variation in ASK1 expression between accessions is indicative of varying function. It could simply mean that there is a great deal of flexibility for ASK1 expression to change and still have it perform its functions. The authors do seem address this possibility in the body of the paragraph (lines 403-404: "…that ASK1 is either very effective assisting the assembly of the SCF complex…").
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: CROWDSOURCING IN MEDICAL RESEARCH: CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The paper is written in clear, professional style. The references are plentiful and relevant, and the topic is current, as interest in crowdsourced approaches to biomedical research is surging.

However, some of the statements made are taken as facts and not adequately challenged. For instance, in lines 140-141, the authors claim that "Empirical evidence from humans suggests that there is a convergent collective intelligence factor that explains a group’s performance on several tasks." Though the authors claim rests on a publication, it is debatable. Convergence is typically the result of an interaction between the participants. If there is no interaction -- and crowdsourcing does not require it -- convergence need not happen.

The authors also claim that a feature of crowdsourced models is to share the solution with the public (lines 156-157). This applies to some crowdsourced models, but is by no means a requirement. For instance, Innocentive, which is a platform that taps the crowd to solve difficult scientific challenges, does not share its solutions. Likewise, some public-private partnerships, such as the Medicines for Malaria Venture, use a crowdsourcing approach (open calls on the internet) to identify novel ways to possibly tackle malaria. Ideas are submitted independently, and are evaluated by a review board to determine which will be pursued, but they are not shared with the public. In fact, the output of the crowdsourcing process in this particular case is not even a solution, but an input into the research process. Yet, that does not make it less valuable.

Finally, the authors spend much time discussing the application of crowdsourcing to community-based research. This is just a subset of crowdsourcing applications, and whatever conclusions they reach in that setting should not be generalized to the entire field. Designing therapeutic programs that are embraced a patient community is quite different from creating a low-cost process to synthesize a new molecule. Crowdsourcing models can be used for both, but they will likely look quite different.

The authors make further unjustified generalizations in the next section (lines 230-275), when they claim that "Issues that are more amenable to crowdsourcing approaches include specific behavioral or social issues (e.g., changing condom use behaviors), topics that have champions and are timely, topics with robust ally networks, and topics where the public has a responsibility to be engaged.". This statement is not properly documented, and takes a narrow view of crowdsourcing. At its core, crowdsourcing consists in tapping a broad range of expertise and ideas to solve problems. In biomedical research, it has proven useful in solving problems ranging from tough scientific challenges to designing community-based disease interventions. But there is no evidence to say that it works better in the latter case. In fact, both are hardly comparable.

The section about the "Critiques of Crowdsourcing" dwells too much on criticism that should be quickly disposed of. It is obvious that any problem-solving approach that taps the crowd is likely to generate a certain volume of low-quality input -- the so-called "madness of groups". However, this is irrelevant. What makes the method valuable is not the low end of the spectrum but its high end. The latter is the only thing that matters. In the same section, the "Boaty McBoatface" should be explained.

In the last section about "Crowdsourcing Applications in Health", the authors mention applications such as "develop study names, logos" and "images, videos, slogans" while overlooking the entire field of drug R&D. Yet, one would expect the latter to be of significantly greater value than logos and slogans. There is an imbalance here that is troublesome.
Experimental design: This is a literature review, and does not involve a study design.
Validity of the findings: It seems that the authors set out to lay the foundation of a "crowdsourcing theory" (lines 60-65), and that perhaps is the problem. Crowdsourcing is a problem-solving approach that works. Its effectiveness is supported by a large body of evidence, and it is not clear why it needs a theory. One may legitimately wonder why it works and if it can be improved, but these questions hinge on what drives individual and collective creativity, topics that are still poorly understood. One may recommend additional research to address them, but this is not what this paper does. It tries instead to build a theory upon a foundation that is too fragmented to support it and, in doing so, disregards important applications of crowdsourcing (e.g., drug R&D), and extrapolates findings from another subset (community-based disease interventions) that do not apply to the entire field.
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: CROWDSOURCING IN MEDICAL RESEARCH: CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The article is written in clear, unambiguous, professional English and is structured professionally. The article is mostly adequately referenced. However, it would seem that references are needed on lines 62, 232, and 262. There are a few minor typos (lines 256 and 285).

The review is broad and cross-disciplinary, but to the extent that it loses the ability to adequately summarize the literature. The terms "medical research", "medicine", and "health" are used interchangeably. Yet "health" is much wider in scope than "medical research". This lack of focus results in a jumble of findings where examples are given on extremely heterogeneous aspects of health, including the use of crowdsourcing for public health interventions as well as for basic research of pathogens. This does not allow for a clear summary of the findings from the literature.

The introduction introduces the subject of crowdsourcing, with an unusual definition. The cited definition focuses on a group of individuals proposing solutions to a problem and sharing these solutions. However, most definitions of crowdsourcing focus on dividing work amongst participants, gathered through the internet or other public platforms. The authors state (lines 81-83) that "this definition is more relevant to medical applications and provides a clearer outline of the essential aspects of crowdsourcing - group participation in problem solving and sharing solutions widely." Yet the authors do not explain why dividing work amongst a group of volunteers is irrelevant to medical applications. Whereas some of the examples mentioned later in the article are performing exactly this type of crowdsourcing. The second aspect of the definition (publicly sharing) is also not always the case. Many crowdsourcing applications actually utilize intellectual property rights and are not restricted to create commons licenses.

It appears that the authors’ motivation for the article is to create a theoretical foundation for crowdsourcing for medicine (lines 56-58). However, this motivation does not fit with a literature review, where the reader expects a summary of the existing evidence/literature.
Experimental design: The survey methodology is insufficiently described. The sources are given (PubMed and Google Scholar) but no information is given regarding the search terms, the search dates, the inclusion and exclusion criteria, how many articles were returned, and how many were excluded. Additionally the parts of the theory (i.e., collective intelligence, open source model, etc.) are not described so that the reader is unsure if this is the authors' own theory or based upon an external reference.
Validity of the findings: As mentioned before, since the literature review does not refine the research question, the results are a mix of different crowdsourcing findings applied to widely divergent tasks. Some examples do not actually relate to crowdsourcing, for example, the forwarding of an email (lines 258-262). The authors do narrow down the potential useful health-related areas of crowdsourcing, focusing mostly on behavioral and social science-related health challenges. In retrospect, the literature review would have been significantly better if the authors had started the review here and provided the reader with a better summary of the evidence as it relates to the strengths and weaknesses of crowdsourcing of behavioral and social science-related health questions/interventions. I hope that any revisions are directed to refining the literature review in this way.

The authors appear to not take the criticisms of crowdsourcing seriously, giving one reference for a potential mitigation strategy to avoid "mad" groups (line 297) and yet this reference article does not relate to crowdsourcing but a moderated, specific intervention. The example of scepticism regarding vaccines seems like an obvious example where "mad" groups have had a significant impact.
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: CROWDSOURCING IN MEDICAL RESEARCH: CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: Needs:

The article would benefit from a clear and consistent definition of crowdsourcing, and it's relationship to open innovation. This is no easy task, as both academics and practitioners have not yet agreed on a common nomenclature. That being said, synthesizing the concept of open innovation (Chesbrough) would be helpful.

In terms of consistency, the introduction often feels at odds with subsequent sections. For example, the rich history of challenges (e.g. Longitude Prize) is noted in detail in a later section, and yet the introduction  (line 54) suggests that 54. “the concept has spurred diverse health programs, including challenge contests….”

At a minimum, the authors are advised to acknowledge how definitions vary, and perhaps include a table of the larger vocabulary employed by practitioners.

A second area for clarification is the definition of "medicine." At times, the paper suggests that the definition is broad. It would be wise to define "medicine" upfront.

In general, I found the article somewhat hard to follow. The majority is spent describing theories, and the conclusion comes quickly at the end without much discussion of other types of crowdsourcing activities, and why they may or may not be successful/appropriate.
Experimental design: As a practitioner, blindspot in the literature, and therefore, a literature review, is that a crowdsourcing program's design has a significant effect on outcome. Rarely is the design taken into account - or even known - by outsiders.

It is widely known among practitioners that poorly-designed crowdsourcing programs yield negative results. A few common mistakes that affect outcome:

- Lack of a clear problem statement or call-to-action
- Misalignment of incentives and intellectual property stance
- Lack of funds or expertise to effectively engage the crowd
Validity of the findings: The conclusion in the section "Crowdsource-able Challenges in Health" feels abrupt I am not seeing the connection between these types of challenges being more appropriate/useful. We have seen crowdsourcing programs effectively tackle a broad cross-section of topics and solutions across health and healthcare. Pillpack, for example, is the product of an MIT hackathon. It was acquired by Amazon for over $1 billion.

Perhaps this is the challenge with literature review vs. study of crowdsourcing outcomes themselves. (see above).
Additional comments: I commend you for taking up this subject. Following the 20th century, where most problem solving was considered proprietary and confidential, we are indeed entering into a new era where collaboration is the new competitive edge.

Cleaning up definitions and nomenclature will greatly improve the article. Specifically, ensuring that the introduction is concise - there are many places where the intro felt off, but later in the article a more thoughtful statement is made.

In terms of the findings, I am at a loss as it's not spelled out in the piece how you arrived at what "good" or "useful" is.


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

Input:
Title: CROWDSOURCING IN MEDICAL RESEARCH: CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The article is clear with professional English used throughout. There is a minor typo on line 91. The article is professionally structured.
Experimental design: The methods section is much improved in this version.
Validity of the findings: Please check the definition of open innovation (line 55-56). Chesborough's definition is that companies use external sources, but it does not include any reference to transparency or making them publicly available. I believe that you are using an alternative defintiion here.

On lines 92-97, it would be good to state that other incentives exist for contributions. For example, Innocentive gives monetary compensation.

OSDD (lines 187-189) is no longer operational. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42188808

Lines (294-6) state that "Crowdsourcing approaches have been used to develop antibiotics, lupus drugs, and anti-malarials." I believe that it should state that "Crowdsourcing approaches have been used to assist in the discovery and development of...".

Lines (300-302) state that "Crowdsourcing could accelerate several stages of drug development, including screening, pre-clinical trials, and human clinical trials." Although the additional information added later about human clinical trials is about study names and logos. These aspects do not greatly delay clinical trials. I would suggest that human clinical trials are removed here since there are many serious problems with the idea of crowdsourcing these trials, for example, maintaining a credible randomized controlled trial to eliminate bias.
Additional comments: Thank you for your attention to the reviewers' comments. This revised article is significantly strengthened.


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: AGE, GROWTH, MORTALITY AND RECRUITMENT OF THIN SHARPBELLY TOXABRAMIS SWINHONIS GÜNTHER, 1873 IN THREE SHALLOW LAKES ALONG THE MIDDLE AND LOWER REACHES OF THE YANGTZE RIVER BASIN, CHINA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The article is fairly well written, far better than i could do were i to submit an article to a Chinese fisheries journal! That being said there are plenty of cases where the grammar could be improved. I have offered numerous suggested rewrites in my attached comments.

There are quite a few instances where the literature cited and the citations in the text do not match up. Often it seems to be a misstated year or a missing authors name on a multi-author citation, but there are enough of these that it poses an impediment to approval of the manuscript for publication. I have identified all of these in the line-by-line comments attached.

Tables and Figures are adequate. I believe Tables 1 and 2 are misordered in the text, reference to Table 1 really refers to Table 2. This needs to be clarified and fixed.
Fig. 5 needs clarification as to where all the lines on the graphs come from, if they are von bert curves, why are there more than one per lake? This could be a function of the software package that generates them, but i am not aware, and i suspect others without a lot of experience with the ELEFAN software module will not know what these are either.
Experimental design: The research question was wide-casting, to study and provide basic life history information on an understudied species. This is the type of information that is often overlooked by managers looking only to mange the important high profile species. Methods were usual and appropriate and described in sufficient detail.
Validity of the findings: The study presents valid results for a previously un- or understudies species. Methods used were de riguer for the field and well explained. My main questions concern the use of the tests for normality of the data. The length data for all three lakes were found to be non-normal, or abnormal in their words. But no explanation was then given of what that meant in the context of the study. What should then have been done with the length data if it were deemed non-normal? is there a transformation it needs to go under? does the finding of non normality dictate then the usage of specified statistical tests? i think in this light, a better explanation of the assumptions of the tests used might be justified.

The data was collected in an efficient manner, lab methods (reading of scales) was routine. Conclusions were brief and i think could be expanded upon. AS i stated in the comments, there could be much more expanded discussion on what might have led to differences in some of the life history characteristics found between lakes, for example the very different slope coefficient for the one lake indicating much more robust fish. Some expanded discussion on why is warranted. Also more general discussion about differences, if any, in the habitat of the three lakes. As i mention in a comment, looking at Fig. 1 shows that one of the lakes has much more shoreline than the other two (finger development). This could be crucial to things like available nursery habitat, etc, and yet is not discussed.
Additional comments: This paper is a good attempt to describe differences in age growth and mortality traits of a very short lived important species in the riverine systems of China. More care needs to be paid to the literature cited section, there are several mis-citations. There is some confusion in the text as to the citing in the proper order of mention of Tables 1 and 2. Some clarification is needed on the components of the box plot, maybe in the legend, what is mean, what is observed points, etc. The figure for the von bertalanffy curves over the LF histograms needs clarification as to what all the lines are, my usual contact with von bert curves is one line per population, why multiple lines?
Your putting this manuscript into the English language was very good, but as expected there are places where there are minor mistakes, i made as many changes as i could in my comments to assist you in making it a better manuscript.
I would like to see you expand the introduction to elaborate more if you can on the importance of this species. Is it important simply as forage for other carnivores, or is it utilized by man as food? Are there currently regulations on the catch of this species? is it even the target of a fishery? You mention it accounts for 85% of catch in some lakes, but who is catching it? targeted commercial fishing? subsistence artisanal private fishermen? is there a market for it?

I think you need to revisit the discussion of longitudinal axis, as i outlined in my line by line comments. and also, while it is true that the lakes all seem to be marginally separated by longitudes, looks like a 10 degree wide  difference for all three lakes, why is longitude relevant? usually it seems its a latitudinal difference (north to south) that matters more, and these are basically all at the same latitude? what is it about this region of China where longitudinal separation might be important?

 I would like to see you equally expand the discussion as to the importance of your findings and how you envision they will be used by fishery managers in China? These are all points that the readers would need to assess the relevancy of this work.


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: AGE, GROWTH, MORTALITY AND RECRUITMENT OF THIN SHARPBELLY TOXABRAMIS SWINHONIS GÜNTHER, 1873 IN THREE SHALLOW LAKES ALONG THE MIDDLE AND LOWER REACHES OF THE YANGTZE RIVER BASIN, CHINA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: While the structure of the article is well-organised, there are many minor grammatical and phrasing errors, as well as numerous colloquialisms (e.g. referring to the focal species as a ‘trash’ species). These are too numerous to list, so I leave the task to the editorial team.
Experimental design: The second aim (b) of this paper needs to be rephrased to avoid suggestion that the cause of large population size for the study species can solely be determined by investigating demography. I understand what the authors are trying to say, but in its current form, the aim cannot be achieved because there are many other potential causes for large population size, for example, competitive or predatory release. I suggest rewording the aim to state that the study ‘aims to identify demographic characteristics consistent with rapid population expansion’. I also recommend that background information on the link between particular life-history strategies and population size be added to the Introduction, so the reader understands what the study is trying to achieve in this regard.

The use of scales for ageing (lines 147) instead of otoliths requires justification. Scales have generally proven less reliable ageing structures than otoliths, because they tend to underestimate ages in older individuals. While this species appears short-lived, and may be a viable candidate for ageing via scales, this should be verified, or at the very least, discussed and qualified.

Related to the previous issue is the lack of age validation in the current study. The annual periodicity of marks counted within the scales must be verified before absolute ages can be interpreted with confidence. This step is essential in the current study because it presents the first age data for the species. The use of Pauly’s maximum age formula (line 154) is not sufficient for age validation, because the value for K used in that formula relies on the age data from the study that was entered into the VBGM (ie the t-max estimate is not independent). I strongly recommend conducting Marginal Increment Analysis (MIA) to demonstrate a single peak in the marginal increment width (distance between the last complete increment and the scale edge along the counting transect) over a 12 month period. The authors have a sufficient collection of individuals for this analysis at an appropriate temporal resolution (monthly collection). Without confidence that marks within the scales were formed annually, few of the conclusions within the paper can be supported. I also recommend the authors provide a figure showing some images of their scales with the annual increments marked. This will hopefully increase the readers faith in the scale-reading technique.
Validity of the findings: Lines 283-285: it’s unclear to me why the authors need to justify the exponent of the LW relationships using a range of known values across previously studies species. The only reasons I can think of might be that the authors believe that sampled lengths and weights are not representative of the populations, e.g. the passive sampling achieved using gill nets precluded capture of less active fish that might have lighter weights for a given length, or the length and weight measurements in the current study were inaccurate. If these are not the case, I suggest removing the comparison to other species for validation purposes. Of course, comparison with other species might still be valid in the discussion for some biological purpose.

Lines 298-299: this is certainly not the case. While age and growth information are highly desirable, there are many rudimentary stock assessment methods that do not require this information. I recommend the authors state the assessment methods that such information would be useful for, rather than engage in sweeping statements of importance (which seem common for numerous variables within the Discussion). I’m also not clear why the authors mention stock assessment for the study species, because it was made clear in the Introduction that they are of little commercial interest (bycatch species).
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: AGE, GROWTH, MORTALITY AND RECRUITMENT OF THIN SHARPBELLY TOXABRAMIS SWINHONIS GÜNTHER, 1873 IN THREE SHALLOW LAKES ALONG THE MIDDLE AND LOWER REACHES OF THE YANGTZE RIVER BASIN, CHINA
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Basic reporting is improved over the first version i reviewed. the authors have incorporated many changes that I and other reviewers, i suspect, recommended. However, there is still room for improvement. I have attached an annotated scanned pdf with further suggestions for improvement and editorial improvement (rephrasing, etc) that i believe would make the paper more readable.
Experimental design: The experimental design of this study is acceptable, it was a field study collecting specimens for fishery research, and was conducted in a standard manner. Laboratory processing and analyses of data to arrive at fishery products (life history parameters) was all conducted using appropriate methods.
Validity of the findings: Findings are valid. There are areas where further discussion would make this a much better paper. The answers may not be known, but the authors could lead the discussion to invite the readers to ponder why certain environmental variables might be responsible for certain results, say (e.g., habitat differences in lakes and why one lake might have substantially different growth parameters coming out of it, etc.)  I have identified a couple of places in the manuscript where i think expanded discussion is warranted.

One of these areas where more discussion is needed is the result of the insertion of a single sentence at the end of the discussion that was not in the first version, a sentence where you talk about moderate fishing or introducing discretely a control predator for population control....wow! this came out of nowhere, and changes the whole context that i viewed this study from.....i thought the general direction of the paper was that the species was of moderate importance from both a fishery standpoint and an ecological forage component standpoint.....but this sentence changes all that......because of this sentence you need to either embellish the introduction to cover this, or expand the discussion greatly.....
Additional comments: This paper is much improved, but still needs what i would call minor revisions. You can see many of my suggestions on the attached scanned copy, i hit my major salient points above....two smaller points that you may want to address:

 the interchanging use of TL and L for length....chose one and stay with it....

the use of 0.01 mm....this is an incredibly small resolution for a fish length, and i would argue biologically meaningless for a growth study on fishes....if we were studying dinoflagellates, sure....the use of 0.01g for gonad weight is fine, that is the norm, but i think lengths can reasonably be in whole mm...


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: VARIATION IN ANT-MEDIATED SEED DISPERSAL ALONG ELEVATION GRADIENTS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The writing is ok, but often disjointed with paragraphs that contain many ideas with poor structuring. The authors repeatedly misinterpret and misreport the literature cited. The figures are ok, but not terribly impressive.
Experimental design: The authors suggest how they fill an identified knowledge gap, but these type of studies have been done many times, suggesting they need to engage in a more thorough literature review. Also, they overstate the climate change angle. A better approach would be to compare and contrast the low elevation myrmecochory driven by granivorous ants and the high-elevation myrmecochory driven by omnivorous ants – the authors need to investigate the differences in these two groups which is confused in their Discussion.
Validity of the findings: The study design seems fine, but the statistical analyses need refined; in particular, the authors use non-normal error distribution without testing for (and accounting for if present) overdispersion, which grossly overstates significance if present.
Additional comments: Lines 25-26 – I am not aware of myrmecochory (the dispersal of seeds by ants) structuring insect communities, unless the authors mean the ants themselves, which should be said rather than "insects."

Lines 26-27 – A strong statement that is not supported by the vast body of literature on ant-mediated seed dispersal.

Line 36 – Something missing here.

Lines 46-48 – A very general and open statement that does not lead into the next sentence well. I would save any climate change discussion until the Discussion as you measured spatial variation not temporal trends.

Lines 48-50 – Not true and not the correct citation for this statement. Zelikova et al. reported that other studies estimated 20-50%.

Line 57 – Ecosystem services generally mean those benefiting humans, not structuring vegetation community structure.

Lines 46-58 – what is the topic of this paragraph?

Lines 63-64 – again, overstated and not true, including citations included in this paper (e.g., Zelikova et al. who studied seed dispersal by elevation).

Lines 59-70 – again, what is the topic of this paragraph?

Line 71 – Zelikova et al. 2008 found just the opposite, ant community composition changed with elevation but myrmecochores did not.

Line 74 – you do not measure nor assess changes in climate; you are using a geographic gradient.

Lines 85-96 – How did the experimental presentation of seeds coincide with the natural seed set? The native plants would be expected to set seed at different points given the change in temperature regimes with elevation. How did the natural seed set of your study species coincide with your experimental presentations?

Line 108 – typo

Line 115 – You do not report any tests for overdisperion in the Poisson-distributed GLMM model. Overdispersion grossly inflates Type I error if present. Also, what is the random effect in the GLMM model?

Lines 116-117 – Why not just the sum of all seeds removed at each station?

Line 119 – Report ANODEV, and it appears you used lmer (assuming Gaussian error), which is an LMM not GLMM.

Lines 128-130 – Actually, based on your figures, it does not look like seed removal rates were dramatically different, except for one species, and the higher elevation ants were just slower.

Lines 132-134 – Why are you hypothesis testing time for seeds to be removed? Would you expect anything else?

Lines 153-156 – Wow, this is a complete misinterpretation of Warren and Giladi 2014 and Zelikova et al. 2008, who identified 'effective' dispersers as those that remove a lot of seeds intact and place in safe sites intact. Granivorous ants are a completely different type of seed dispersal and not what either paper addressed. Indeed, granivorous ants eat the seeds, which makes them less than effective seed dispersers.

I stopped here. The authors need to consider a very thorough revision including a review of the literature used.


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: VARIATION IN ANT-MEDIATED SEED DISPERSAL ALONG ELEVATION GRADIENTS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Language used throughout: The language used is clear and easy to read and there are few grammatical errors.

Intro and background context and relevancy of literature: The introduction does a good job of explaining what myrmecohory is and how it may shape vegetation structure.  The literature on myrmecochory and the plant structure associated with this relationship appears to be adequate.  I do, however, feel the environmental gradient component, which is vital to the story, could be amplified a bit.  For instance, Ln 62-64 suggestion that seed dispersal rates have not been studied along environmental gradients is notable. Adding on another sentence why this information is important to understand (e.g., vary with climate change? Loss of species? Etc.) will help the reader understand the potential impact of the study. If there are no studies exactly like this, including additional literature of how similar relationships are important along an elevational gradient could also be useful to bolster the importance of the study.

Structure of manuscript: Other than having a different reference format (see suggestions in "general comments" on Ln 217 onward) the structural layout of the manuscript follows Peer J guidelines.

Figure relevancy: Figures provided are relevant and effectively demonstrate the findings between elevation and species removal over time. Was the omission of the PCA of ant communities on purpose? If so, justification of why it is added to the statistical description and not the results is needed. If it was accidentally omitted providing a figure of the PCA could be useful for interpretation of the ant communities.

Raw data: The raw data provided are sufficient and helpful in understanding how the data were collected.
Experimental design: Relevancy of study within scope of journal and originality: This study falls within the scope of Peer J and appears is original in its questions, design, and findings.

Definition of research questions: Research objectives are defined so that the reader knows what the authors expect to find in their two primary predictions. If the authors want to keep the different questions defined as #1, and #2, I would find it a bit easier to follow if the two primary questions are clearly noted as questions, rather than predictions, and then referred back to in the methods, results, and discussion. Alternatively, it is fine to keep purpose of the study broad so that elevation and species are the two primary topics of investigation, however, if this is the format I would avoid using terms such as “in our second objective” as this leads the reader to think they missed the first (see "general comments" suggestion for line 98). It would also be helpful to maintain a consistency in stating “objectives” (e.g., Ln98) and “predictions” (e.g., Ln 130).

Finally, the introduction of the ant communities feels a bit misplaced. Why is this not a research question but is noted in the statistical methods, discussion, and r-code but not in the results? The decision to include this information or fully omit it would help continuity.

Rigorous nature of investigation: The investigation of using different species in addition to the elevational gradient helps fuel our understanding of how ants are moving around these seeds. I am comfortable with the level of rigor this study provides.

Detail of methods: The methods are generally easy to follow yet at this point don’t feel like they could be replicated with the information given. I would recommend more detail in the methods to help the reader easily understand how the two objectives are being addressed and implemented in the field. For instance, the statement of how the second objective will be tested but not the first big objective of rates of seed removal along elevational gradients isn’t totally clear (see specific methods suggestions in "general comments").
Validity of the findings: Rationale and benefit: Knowing the rate of seed removal by species and elevation will benefit the ecological community in understanding plant-insect interactions. It will also help the restoration ecology community as they often put down seeds as a treatment and do not know if seeds are removed from the site or if they just don’t germinate.

Stats and data robust and sound: Most of the statistics are stated in an unambiguous manner and the GLMMs fixed and random factors clearly defined. I would appreciate a bit more information on how the repeated measures ANOVA was conducted (see specific suggestions in "general comments") to better assess the accuracy of using this analysis.

Conclusions linked to study: The conclusions link to the study well and are sufficient in summarizing the big picture points the study identified.

Level of speculation: It doesn’t appear that the authors deviate too far outside their study topics in the discussion.
Additional comments: Minor comments with associated line numbers:

Ln 34-36: The closing paragraph of the abstract does not appear to be finished. …suggesting that temperature variation along the elevation gradient…? Please revise for clarity.

Ln 87: Please describe what a “seed depot” is and its intended purpose.

Ln 98: It is useful to remind the reader what your specific objectives are. I would recommend paraphrasing what your second objective is before jumping in to the individual species.

Ln 97-107: The information on the different plant species is very important and useful for the read, however, you don’t note how you distributed the different species seeds on the landscape or quantified their removal. Are the 10 deed depots used for both objective 1 and2? Please include this information.

Ln 118: Was the repeated measures ANOVA run in R too?  More details in the R-code provided in the supplementary material and in the text are needed to accurately assess how this analysis was ran. Also, in Table 2 Site is included in the output but not noted that it is included in the model in the methods section.

Ln 136: include a space: and 18%

Ln 193: I like the reference to the phenology of sumac's seed drop and how it varies. One question I have wondered throughout: is there potential for temperature (or other climate variability) across the elevational gradients to guide the results? I don’t believe July is too early for the ants to be in full foraging mode, particularly in these SW systems, but could the difference in climate metrics across elevation gradients interact with the movement of the ants and their seed removal?

Ln 217: The format of references cited does not exactly follow peer J guidelines. For example the year is in parentheses and the volume number is in parentheses but not asked to be included in the references. See example reference:

Smith JL, Jones P, Wang X. 2004. Investigating ecological destruction in the Amazon. Journal of the Amazon Rainforest 112:368-374 DOI: 10.1234/amazon.15886.

Figure 1. “mean seed removal rates per bait station...” do you mean seed depot? If they are different please explain, if they are the same thing, I would stay consistent in your terms.


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: VARIATION IN ANT-MEDIATED SEED DISPERSAL ALONG ELEVATION GRADIENTS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The article is well written and cited, following the standard format of peer review publications. There are some citations that do not match the context for which they are given (listed below). This makes me worry that other citations are not representative, though I have not checked all of them and can only speak to the citations that reference me.

Zelikova et al 2008 (my paper) does not talk show that ant seed dispersal shapes plant communities, the Zelikova et al. 2011 paper does.

The claim in the discussion that the harvester ants have multiple traits which make them ants ideal dispersers cites Warren and Giladi 2014 and Zelikova et al. 2008 - neither of these papers are about harvester ants. So I would either cite appropriate harvester papers or mention the ant traits that are relevant (what are the traits that make them ideal seed dispersers?)
Experimental design: The research questions are not clearly stated, but rather indirectly stated by way of predictions. I would prefer a clearly stated question that links the factors that change along an elevational gradient linked to the process being studied (seed dispersal), rather than predictions not linked to process. The statement that ant communities are resilient to climate change (Stuble reference) is immediately followed by saying that less is known about that in a different ecosystem. "Less is known" is not a compelling enough reason - are there reasons to suspect that desert ecosystems would act fundamentally differently? If predictions are the way to tell this story, I would still suggest changing the framing.
The prediction that seed removal would be higher at lower elevations as a result of higher ant abundances and different ant communities relies on something that needs to be tested (higher ant abundances and different ant communities) but a prediction should stand on its on, not contingent on another experimental factor. And I am not sure we talk about seeds as having native elevation ranges but rather plant distribution that peaks at certain elevations.

The experimental work was done to high ethical standard and is not technically rigorous but does not need to be given the simplicity of the task (measuring seed dispersal by ants is not a highly technical endeavor, which is what makes it accessible and scalable). In terms of measurements, looking at 3 elevations is the minimum needed to establish an elevational gradient, but I could also argue that the 3 sites are different, regardless of elevation (no way to fix this, but really should have >3 sites for an elevational gradient study). Even the low elevation site in this study could actually be a mid-elevation site in another study and the high elevation site is not high enough to eliminate ant occurrence and actually have the capacity to test how ant abundance affects seed removals.

I would also say that we say "occurrence" and not "incidence" when referring to counting # of times we collect a taxonomic group.

In the GLM analysis, I am not sure treating time as a fixed effect is valid given the fact that the number of seeds removed is contingent upon time and # of seeds removed in hour 2 is not independent of how many seeds were removed at hour 1. I like the repeated measures framework instead and don't think the first GLM is necessary or adds anything to the analysis or outcomes. In fact, if comparing total # of seeds is of interest, can sum across time (since time is not part of the research questions or predictions). If oat is actually the "control", I would want to see removal rates compared to that control rather than all 4 species compared on what is essentially equal footing. Or another place to make that distinction is in the discussion.
Validity of the findings: The results are clear and unsurprising.
A few improvements can be made. Stating "In all analyses (global model and seed specific models), time influenced the number of seeds  that the longer the depots are active, the more seeds are removed, ranging from 25% to 58% over the 48-hour time period" seems obvious and unnecessary.

I would want to see the actual direction of the trend following statements like "Our repeated measures analyses suggested a strong interaction between elevation and seed species (Table 2, p < 0.001)." - follow up with what the interaction actually was.

This might be journal standard, but I would italicize the genus names for the plant species in the results section.

In the discussion, the authors switch to talking about granivory rather than seed dispersal, which is an important distinction. If this is really a story about seed dispersal and not seed consumption, need to keep those terms straight.

Why is it meaningful that the harvester ants were observed removing seeds of Datura and Sumac, as well as the control Oat, but never Iris? Seems like there needs to be follow up or a hypothesis about Iris.

Given the heavy emphasis on "native" elevation ranges etc, I did not see enough supporting information or enough of a foundation in the introduction to link to the conclusions that basically link native plant ranges with ant abundances. For example, this sentence seems to be unsupported, at least by this study: "We highlight that for some species (Datura and Iris) their ant-mediated dispersal rate is highest in their native elevation range, which may suggest strong mutualistic links between ants and these plant species." If that's indeed the big take-away from this study, it needs to be explored and supported more.
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: VARIATION IN ANT-MEDIATED SEED DISPERSAL ALONG ELEVATION GRADIENTS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Clear, unambiguous, professional English Language is used throughout.

Intro & background to show context and why the study is relevant. I, however, do feel that with the introduction changes that were already made the final paragraph could include directed research questions and the associated predictions. This would then allow the reader to know what the study was looking at what it expected to find. Then in the discussion efforts can be directed towards how the questions were answered and whether predictions were met, why or why not based on the current literature. This was brought up by a reviewer in the initial review but not fully addressed in the rebuttal.

Literature is well structured and relevant to the study that was conducted.

Figures are relevant and visually augment the text.  The figures could, however, be changed so that there are no graphical lines (horizontal or vertical) within the main frame of the figure. The removal of any grid lines will increase the visibility of the general observed trends over time and the differences between elevations.
Experimental design: This primary research is original and demonstrates an interesting insect plant relationship across an elevational gradient.

Addresses an identified knowledge gap which appears to meet a high ethical standard when disseminating the information.  The methods have been improved to include greater detail on the methods and the information available in the case someone would want to replicate their study.
Validity of the findings: Data appear robust, statistically sound and with the adjustments to the statistical efforts (e.g., testing for overdispersion) appear to be sound.

Is any other insect moving these seeds around? Acknowledgment of other ways the seeds may have been removed from the seed depot should be acknowledged. Alternatively, if only ants can remove the seeds this should be directly stated other than just ‘larger granivores’.

Discussion and conclusions are fine.
Additional comments: General comments:
Please be sure to address the reviewer comments/suggestions completely and be directed in the responses. A few times suggestions were made by a reviewer and it was stated that the changes were made but they were not necessarily fully addressed. It is totally fine to politely disagree with a reviewer with explanation as to why, but if changes are acknowledged as made, please be directed in how they are made. For instance, the statement "highlighted the broader significance of the study in the discussion" was made as a response to a suggestion about building the link to the broader context in the introduction, but then when looking over the discussion, it is not clear where the change(s) were made.

Line comments:
Ln 58: With the change in text “sky Islands” now seems to come out of nowhere. Including one sentence linking the two paragraphs would fix this. For example, because the last sentence ends with a focus on dispersal the beginning of the next sentence could read something like: “While seed dispersal can play a key role in vegetation communities, its impacts can be influenced by elevational gradients…” or something of the sort.

Ln 74: A bit more information is needed to help the reader. Perhaps, as an example, you could start with: “To better understand myrmecochory across elevation gradients and species specific ant-plant mutualism, we documented….”

Ln 92: “(detailed below)” still isn’t totally clear. Lines 107-110 appear to be about the pitfall traps, not seed depots. Unless I am misunderstanding, these are not one and the same. Please see initial review comments as I don't believe this was fully addressed.

Ln 120: I like the inclusion of the over dispersion text/explanation.

Ln 188-191: Isn’t this low elevation observation of ant communities having a highly active and seed dispersing species just a repeat of  how harvester ants, and the other species, are active dispersers in the previous paragraph?

Ln 198: It is nice to see when “future work” is suggested, but a bit more clarity, and directed detail on how this is different than this study, is needed when the statement “the network of ants interacting with various seed species being dispersed along environmental gradients” is made.


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: VARIATION IN ANT-MEDIATED SEED DISPERSAL ALONG ELEVATION GRADIENTS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The article meets the basic standards of being written in clear professional English, with references and background provided. In general, this research is not novel, at least the way it is presented here.
Experimental design: This is primary research. The research questions, however, are not well linked to the background and context provided. The study is carried out well and there are no huge issues with methods, which are simple and easy to replicate. The issues are related to the reasons for the study and what the outcomes tell us. Given the fact that the authors essentially performed a preference study with ants and seeds across an elevation gradient limits the study's applicability, especially because the results are not linked to the study's framing. Specific comments below:
Validity of the findings: See below and appended
Additional comments: This manuscript presents a seed removal studies conducted across an elevation gradient. These studies have been done a lot, with seeds dispersed by ants and by other dispersal agents. As presented in this manuscript, this study is not original and does not add any new information to our understanding of how systems function, what the impact of this kind of seed dispersal is on the resultant plant communities, and it misses the mark on doing the relevant analyses framed in the research questions. For example, no meaningful analyses of the influence of ant community compositional shifts across the elevation gradient are conducted. Elevation does not in and of itself move seeds so biological processes needed to be invoked. Since I did not see meaningful progress from the last iteration of this manuscript and the edits were cosmetic and not substantial, I recommend to reject this manuscript from publication. I provide more detailed comments throughout the manuscript.


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

Input:
Title: VARIATION IN ANT-MEDIATED SEED DISPERSAL ALONG ELEVATION GRADIENTS
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment, meets journal standards.
Experimental design: After changes to previous versions appears to meet journal and scientific technical and ethical standards.
Validity of the findings: No comment, meets general standards.
Additional comments: In reviewing the resubmitted manuscript by Del Toro and Ribbons, Variation in ant-mediated seed dispersal along elevation gradients, my first comment is regarding the rebuttal letter. The rebuttal letter itself feels incomplete. The authors state that they have conducted line by line edits, and while the most recent review did not contain as many line by line edits suggestions as the previous versions, it did contain some directed instructions to provide greater clarity and depth to suggested changes, from both myself and the other reviewer. With such a short rebuttal letter, the burden is now put on the reviewer to hunt and peck where the changes were made, whether specific or broad, and decide not only if they have found the right place, but if they were then sufficient. For future manuscripts (or perhaps this one) I strongly recommend directly answering the reviewers comments in a clear and concise manner in both the rebuttal letter as well as the main text document. This then allows the authors, reviewers, and editor to all be on the same page and move the dialog as well as scientific efforts forward.

An example of where I believe the changes were made but had to go back over my previous review to be sure, is the seed depots. In looking back over my previous two requests I ask that the difference of seed depots and pitfall traps are clearly differentiated. While each time there is an incremental change, the definition, or explanation, of what a seed depot is, for the broad Peer J audience that may not know, is never included. I understand this is may feel like a minor request to the authors, but it leads me to wonder what else hasn’t been directly addressed.

That said, I do appreciate the authors changes, the effort put in, and feel the manuscript only requires minor revisions before being sufficient for publication:

Minor edits (using the rebuttal text line numbers):
Ln 85-87: A brief explanation of why species-specific responses in addition to the heterogeneous environment may occur would help this sentence.
Ln 130:  How close were these to your seed depots?
Ln 206-208: What was a generality in the ant-Iris interactions and how could it relate to your work?


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: PREPARATION OF MITOCHONDRIA TO MEASURE SUPEROXIDE FLASHES IN ANGIOSPERM FLOWERS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: In general, criteria on basic reporting are met. However, see the general comments for the Author.
Experimental design: These standards are met.
Validity of the findings: Please see the general comments for the author (next section).
Additional comments: In this article, a fast method to prepare crude mitochondria from flowers is described. Mitochondria prepared with this method presented high phosphorylation activity; as assessed by its high respiration control ratios (RCR). In addition, they produced an electrical transmembrane potential when succinate was added as a respiratory substrate (observed with TMRM), which presented sudden decreases probably because the aperture of a permeability-transition pore (or other ion channels). Finally, superoxide flashes were observed in these respiring mitochondria.
My comments and suggested changes are:
1. A strong point is the method reported to prepare mitochondria. The authors appropriately point (in both the Introduction and the Discussion) that a quick preparation method often produces highly active organelles.
2. Another strong point is the measurement of superoxide flashes in a single mitochondrion. Using prepared mitochondria allows the observation of these flashes in media of known composition. The authors should take advantage of it. For instance, have superoxide flashes been observed in the presence of ADP + Pi? or in the presence of uncouplers? If these experiments have been done, state (and discuss) the results obtained. Results of experiments of this kind would strengthen the conclusions of this work (for instance, indicating if a strong electrical transmembrane gradient is necessary for the production of superoxide flashes).
3. The Figures and the Table illustrate well the findings reported. However, the information in headings is insufficient. For instance, it is necessary to state the method used to assess viability in Fig. 1. It is also convenient to describe briefly, in the same figure heading, the essentials of method B (e.g. “density gradient-purified mitochondria”.
4. In Fig. 1, much less “viable” (fluorescent) mitochondria are observed when the method B is used. In contrast, oxygen-consumption rates and RCR values are only slightly lower in mitochondria prepared with method B. How do you explain this discrepancy?
5. Some, mainly grammatical, suggested changes are indicated (as notes) directly on the PDF document.
Because of the above, I consider that this work can be accepted for publication once the suggested changes are followed.


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: PREPARATION OF MITOCHONDRIA TO MEASURE SUPEROXIDE FLASHES IN ANGIOSPERM FLOWERS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: As presented, the article lacks of a clear focus. All along, authors mix the value of developing a new method for obtaining plant mithocondria, and using them for detecting ROS, with the physiological role of them. What is the goal?? reporting a new method or reporting the detection of ROS and its physiological relevance in tissue flower??

On the other hand, the number of references cited seems exceisive for the kind of article.
Experimental design: The experimental desing seem adecuate, however, it is not clearly presented. Authors should metion that they are following two methods in order to compare them and present a detailes description of each one.
Validity of the findings: See coments of the 1st section.
Additional comments: The MS present interesting and valuble data, however it is not clearly presented, since it emphasizes the development of new method in some sections whereas discussing the physyological relevance of ROS in floral tissues. These two elements, however are not properly articulated through the paper.


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

Input:
Title: PREPARATION OF MITOCHONDRIA TO MEASURE SUPEROXIDE FLASHES IN ANGIOSPERM FLOWERS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: This manuscript describes a new and efficient technique to isolate crude mitochondria from flower elements. The quality of the isolated mitochondria appears to be quite high and the localization of these organelles and their elements
Nevertheless, the manuscript has two major faults that are: i) the results are described as the experiments were performed on intact tissues, not on isolated mitochondria. If this is not the case, the methods are missing this description; ii) the linkage between the loss in mitochondrial membrane potential and the manifestation of mitochondrial permeability transition is very speculative, since no further evidence is provided to establish the involvement of mPTP (e.g. by using cyclosporine A). Therefore, the title is quite misleading since the authirs showed the mitochondria preparation and the superoxide flashed but did not characterized the mitochondrial permeability transition, which requires a more complex characterization.
	The manuscript in its present form needs major revisions.
Experimental design: Please, see above comments.
Validity of the findings: Please, see above 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: PREPARATION OF MITOCHONDRIA TO MEASURE SUPEROXIDE FLASHES IN ANGIOSPERM FLOWERS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: I am ready to recommend accepting this new version of the MS, since all observations previously made, were included.
Experimental design: No comments
Validity of the findings: No comments
Additional comments: I am ready to recommend accepting this new version of the MS, since all observations previously made, were included.


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: RESPIRATORY SYNCYTIAL VIRUS, HUMAN METAPNEUMOVIRUS, AND INFLUENZA VIRUS INFECTION IN BANGKOK, 2016-2017
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: There are a few places where the English needs correcting.

Some of the references could be more relevant.

For examples, see specific comments below in General comments.
Experimental design: Would be important to include a few additional details about the methods of the epidemiologic study design.  For specifics see below in General comments.
Validity of the findings: Generally fine given the limitations of the study design.  Would be critical to include a limitations paragraph in the discussion.  For specifics see below in General comments.
Additional comments: This paper describes the prevalence and genetic characteristics of several respiratory viruses in a convenience sample of outpatients seeking care at one hospital in Bangkok.  The findings are interesting and contribute to the general knowledge of influenza viruses, RSV and human metapneumovirus from a tropical country.  However, they may not be representative of the broader population in Bangkok.

(Pages were not numbered so I used the pdf page number as reference.)
Page 7, line 53.  Transcriptase is the enzyme.  The test is called “reverse transcription…”
Page 7, lines 54-56.  You are implying that the PCR was/should be used for clinical care.  However, in this study you used it for surveillance/research and did it retrospectively on batched samples (I think).  It is ok to say it may have utility in clinical care (with the caveat that it might be expensive), but I think you should also say it is useful for surveillance purposes.  Also, you do not come back to this point about clinical care in the discussion.  I would delete.
Page 8, specimen section.  Please include more information on the methods.  Were these from both outpatient and inpatient populations (I assume just outpatients)?  What is the catchment population of this hospital?  Did you have other clinical or epidemiologic data?  Did you enroll persons of all ages?  Was there any sampling methodology?  Were all persons sampled or only, say, the first X of the day.  You say it was a convenience sample, but a little more information would help the reader to understand the biases inherent in your sample.
Page 11, Beginning of results.  Please add a sentence of two about your sample before presenting the viral results.  How many people, what was the age/sex distribution, etc.  Can you say anything about refusals?
Page 11, line 143.  Please do not refer to this as incidence as it is just prevalence.  Was there any seasonal difference in RSV A vs. B?
Page 13, line 173.  It doesn’t look like you did any statistical testing, so you can’t say if any co-infections occurred more than chance.  I would delete that sentence and just state what you found.  It would be nice to  have percentages in Table 4.
Page 14, line 183.  You say “cost-effectively” but you present no data to support that claim.  I would delete it.
Page 14, line 187.  You need to insert the word “prevalence” after RSV and hMPV.  The it would be “was” not “were.”  Also, delete the word “at” before the word between.
Page 14, line 190.  It seems odd that you only reference one paper from Iran.  I would be more comprehensive or maybe just cite other papers from Thailand.
Page 15, line 213.  You can’t say it is consistent with other countries and not consistent with other countries.  These two statements are inconsistent.  In fact, if your argument is that RSV type varies by year you should lead with that.  Then, if you compare to other countries you probably should compare the same seasons.
Page 16, line 225.  You cannot say anything about severity from your study since I think you only had outpatients.  If you are referring to what other have found, please be clear.  Otherwise you should delete that part.
Page 16, line 232.  You need to say “However, a few studies…”
Page 16, line 237.  Again, please use the word prevalence and not incidence.  Also, the dominant influenza A subtype varies by year, so you need to be when you say H3 dominated what year that was. Also, there are better references to summarize the influenza activity in the US.
Page 16.  You need to add a limitations paragraph.  Please at least include 1) convenience sample so probably not representative of all outpatient respiratory illness in Bangkok, 2) only outpatients so not able to investigate the questions raised about severity, and 3) ILI clinical syndrome may not be the best to identify RSV.
Page 17, 255.  I think the main point should be that influenza viruses were the most frequently detected viruses in your sample.
Figure 1C.  For the influenza graph, I would add a link for percent positive for any flu virus.  It would be nice if you could say how the data are helpful to clinicians and researchers.
Table 3.  I the p-value for the age distribution?  It is not clear in the table.  I don’t really think the p-value is that helpful.  It only tells you that there are differences overall, but not which difference are important.  Also, did you have any patients 65 years or older?  That is the standard cut-off for influenza so would be important to know.  For sex, you don’t need to list both male and female.
I was not able to find the raw data on the website.  Please be sure that is available.


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

Input:
Title: RESPIRATORY SYNCYTIAL VIRUS, HUMAN METAPNEUMOVIRUS, AND INFLUENZA VIRUS INFECTION IN BANGKOK, 2016-2017
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: .
Experimental design: .
Validity of the findings: .
Additional comments: Thongpan et al. have examined over 8,000 respiratory specimens from patients with respiratory illnesses for the presence of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human metapneumovirus (hMPV) and influenza virus throughout two recent years in Bangkok, Thailand. Influenza-like illness peak each year during the rainy season. The investigators were able to detect one or more of these viruses by multiplex real-time reverse transcription PCR in 30% of NP swab samples. PCR products for the two major subtypes of RSV and hMPV, and the two currently circulating types of influenza virus were sequenced. Influenza virus was most prevalent overall, and in the older age groups, while RSV and hMPV were more prevalent in young children, though also present in all age groups.

This report is a thorough investigation of three prominent respiratory viruses in a large population in a densely populated region over two entire years. The number of influenza virus and RSV viruses identified were >1,000, and hMPV >300, an excellent sample size for defining the relative numbers of these infections and when they occurred.

The authors used samples from patients with influenza-like illnesses (l.63). Does this mean that the RSV and hMPV cause influenza-like symptoms?

The authors do not discuss why they were only able to detect a virus in ~30% of the samples. How were these samples handled, stored? What was the efficiency of detection for other similar studies? Was their method less sensitive than expected? Are there other respiratory viruses that could have caused these ILI symptoms that were not tested for? Other influenza viruses, parainfluenza viruses, rhinoviruses, adenoviruses or others? Were any of these ruled out?

The frequency of co-infections seems low, 3% or less in all age groups. Could that be because they did not test for many other respiratory pathogens? The authors should state the frequency of co-infection as co-infection with two or more of the 6 virus types tested for.

It seems surprising all 23 RSV-A strains were the same genotype, ON1, and all 93 of the RSV-B strains were BA9. Would the primers used be able to detect all the other RSV-A and RSV-B strains?

Figure 1 shows an excellent plot of the overall results of the monthly detection of RSV, hMPV and influenza virus plotted on the backdrop of the seasonal distribution of each virus over the two years of study. It is obvious from the plot that in the first year, the RSV peak was on the leading edge of the overall respiratory virus plot, and hMPV was on the trailing edge of the peak. The hMPV also remained high for three months beyond the overall peak. Influenza virus coincided very well with the overall peak (because there were more influenza that RSV and hMPV combined). In contrast, in the second year, all three viruses peaked simultaneously during the overall peak. Surprisingly, the authors did not mention any of this. They need to discuss this interesting result and what it means for predicting the virus that a patient is infected by the most recent detections, which they do discuss.

The sequencing method and the primers used for sequencing are not mentioned, but should be.

In Figures 2 and 3, which viruses were determined in this study? Are they the ones with the circle or triangle symbols? Why triangle, circle?

Suggestions:
l.39. contributor to morbidity
l.188. 15.4 and 21.2%...5.5 and 5.7%
l.191. lower burden
l.194. aged 13-18 years
l.202. settings such as Indonesia…New Zealand. In these regions, respiratory infections peak in the rainy season and decline during the hot and dry months.
l.232. However, other studies have reported no clinical differences between hMPV genotypes
L.234/5. What does this sentence mean? It implies that we now know the relationship between clinical severity and genetic variability of hMPV, but does tell the reader what that is, and ends with “has remained unclear”.
l.240. flu subtype(S, 2017), similar to reports from the US
l.247. virus consistent with an overlap of seasonal RSV and influenza virus infections.
l.255. The conclusion section could be improved. See attached pdf.
Table 2 title. hMPV or influenza virus.
In Table 4, the # for Dual infections does not the sum of the dual infections in the other two virus columns (Influenza dual is 127; Inf+RSV is 125; Inf+hMPV is 8: 127 does not equal 125 + 8) Adding in the triple infections does not help. Otherwise, a very useful table.


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

Input:
Title: RESPIRATORY SYNCYTIAL VIRUS, HUMAN METAPNEUMOVIRUS, AND INFLUENZA VIRUS INFECTION IN BANGKOK, 2016-2017
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: l.23. a word seems to be missing: ...metropolitan ______ of Thailand... Regoin? District?
l.188. a previous study...
l.230. while other authors found a higher...
l.245. parainfluenza viruses and rhinoviruses, we... Could adenovirus also cause ILI?

I agree that finding different peaks for the 3 viruses the first year and not the second does not establish a pattern. But it does suggest separate introductions of each virus to the community.


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: GENOME-WIDE ANALYSIS OF MAIZE OSCA FAMILY MEMBERS AND THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN DROUGHT STRESS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript "Genome-wide analysis of maize OSCA family members and their involvement in drought stress" described the maize OSCA family members in response to drought stress in maize. Furthermore, they focus on their involvement in drought. An association was observed between genetic variation in ZmOSCA4.1 and drought tolerance at the seedling stage. The manuscript is suited to the PeerJ as per aims and scope.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: (1) The authors constructed a phylogenic tree of OSCA genes in maize, sorghum, rice and Arabidopsis. However, no articles were cited for these genes. The authors should cite related literature or add methods used to identify these genes.
(2) The expression profiles of the ZmOSCA genes in different tissues should be introduced in MATERIALS and METHODS.
(3) Line 232 isn’t appropriate. Should the expression level be regulated?
(4) Semagn et al (2013) reported an article to reveale QTLs for drought resistance, and the article could be found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23663209. It is well known that association analysis and linkage positioning can be complementary. Could the authors compare the physical position of ZmOSCA4.1 with the reported drought-tolerant QTL in maize?
(5) The past sentence is highly recommended. For example, Line 236, 253, 275 etc should be in the past tense. The “Zea mays” in Table 1 should be italic. The author should pay more attention to the writing.