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: TIME TO GET OUR FOUR PRIORITIES RIGHT: AN 8-YEAR PROSPECTIVE INVESTIGATION OF 1326 PLAYER-SEASONS TO IDENTIFY THE FREQUENCY, NATURE, AND BURDEN OF TIME-LOSS INJURIES IN ELITE GAELIC FOOTBALL
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript is very well written; references used are recent and relevant. No major issues with the article structure, however, it would be important to learn from the Editor if the style used to present the references and the unstructured abstract are acceptable by the Journal standards or must be adjusted.
Experimental design: The experimental design does not raise any concerns. Nevertheless, relying on the reports from medical staffs, as the author acknowledge always leads to relevant bias. Also, it would be very interesting to have more details on the training and match loads (e.g. number of matches per week, number of training sessions, type of training sessions). Methodology is well described, however no details are given on the source of information regarding the players exposure.
Validity of the findings: In general, results and discussion are well written and the conclusions linked with the research question.
However, this is where I have some concerns regarding the manuscript:
1) although I understand that the exposure is calculated multiplying the number of hours of training or match by the number of athletes present, that is not explicit in the text;
2) also regarding the exposure, no details are given regarding the source of the information. Was data sent by the medical teams clearly indicating the number of training sessions and matches and the number of athletes present at each session/match? Or was that an estimation made by the authors?
3) Line 113 to 117: Team rates – please explain, if the overall injury rate per season is 42, and only match and training are considered, why the gap (24 match injuries and 15 training injuries = 39 injuries)? Then, Line 189: (…) reveal that teams sustain 24 match-play and 13 training injuries per season (…)
4) Line 131 to 158: Again a gap that I was not able to follow/understand:
a) Match injuries associated with the onset of 55.8% of all new injuries (…) training associated with the onset of 38.7% (…) of all new injuries
b) Match injuries associated with the onset of 59.3% of all recurrent injuries (…) training associated with the onset of 35.6% (…) of all recurrent injuries
5) Line 170 to 171: Match-play incidence (50.5 ….) was 13-times higher than training incidence….
However, Line 189: Injury incidence per 1000 exposure hours is 12.9 times greater in match-play (48.9/1000 hours)
6) A larger discussion of the study limitations should be included in the discussion and removed from the conclusions.
Additional comments: Dear author, thank you for the opportunity to read this very well written manuscript describing the characteristics of sports injuries sustained by Gaelic Football players during eight seasons. Gaelic football is not very popular outside Ireland, but the similarities to other football codes (e.g. rugby union, American football, soccer) made it very interesting for me to read your manuscript. I have expressed my concerns and I am sure that you will be able to provide the necessary clarifications to make your paper ready for publishing.


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: TIME TO GET OUR FOUR PRIORITIES RIGHT: AN 8-YEAR PROSPECTIVE INVESTIGATION OF 1326 PLAYER-SEASONS TO IDENTIFY THE FREQUENCY, NATURE, AND BURDEN OF TIME-LOSS INJURIES IN ELITE GAELIC FOOTBALL
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment.
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: This paper addresses an important topic and provides some much needed information to identify injury prevention targets in Gaelic football. The inclusion of the figures was beneficial and the analysis was well completed. Below find some specific comments that I hope the authors will find useful when preparing their revisions.


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: TIME TO GET OUR FOUR PRIORITIES RIGHT: AN 8-YEAR PROSPECTIVE INVESTIGATION OF 1326 PLAYER-SEASONS TO IDENTIFY THE FREQUENCY, NATURE, AND BURDEN OF TIME-LOSS INJURIES IN ELITE GAELIC FOOTBALL
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: Thank you to the authors for their comprehensive review. The authors have addressed all my comments and I support the publication of this article.


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

Input:
Title: SIZE MATTERS BUT HUNGER PREVAILS—BEGGING AND PROVISIONING RULES IN BLUE TIT FAMILIES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This manuscript investigates several factors that may influence begging in blue tits, namely hunger, size rank, and their siblings' begging. The manuscript is well-written. The figures and table are clear and helpful. The raw data and R file are clearly presented. It has self-contained results that are relevant results to hypotheses.

I believe it could have more background/context for the field. For instance, [33-35] Not all empirical / experimental studies show an increase in parental provisioning in response to increased offspring begging (see, for example, Caro et al 2016's meta-analysis of begging and provisioning, which found that parental responsiveness to begging varies by species and wherein you can find examples of studies showing no change in parental provisioning due to begging). Your sentence, as written, implies that this is a settled and consistent finding. I think the introduction could be strengthened by including some of the nuance around this signalling system.

[76-77] Again, the function of begging is not as settled in the literature as it might seem based on your introduction. You write under the assumption that begging is an honest signal of need to parents, yet it is also possible that it is a signal of quality, a signal of hunger, scramble competition (a non-signal), or a signal to nestmates rather than to parents (for example, Grafen 1990; Royle et al 2002; Mock et al 2011; Rodriguez-Girones et al 1996 and 1998; Roulin et al 2000 etc). It is alright to write under the honest signal of need framework, but you should acknowledge that other possibilities exist in the introduction, and not just the discussion.

The discussion has sufficient literature references, and was very well written. I think it situated the current study well within the field and ongoing research. It also summarized your findings succinctly and clearly.
Experimental design: The research question is well defined, relevant, and meaningful. I have no ethical concerns about the experiment.

Overall, the experimental design of the study was sound, and I commend the authors on the food deprivation experiment and video analysis.

The methods may need to be clarified (see next section).
Validity of the findings: Issues with data / analysis, or with how methods are written:

*Random effects:
If I am interpreting your excel sheet correctly, nestling ID is a combination of nest + weight class. So I believe you have coded 4 different chicks as only 2 different chicks (for example, both light chicks in nest 16 are coded as 16L, and both heavy chicks are coded as 16H). Therefore, you are not really controlling for chick ID when you include ID, but instead you are controlling for weight within brood, which is also included in your fixed effects. This means the true effect of weight class on begging, and the true effect of individual ID, cannot be determined by your current analysis. I assume that it was impossible to distinguish between the two chicks in each weight class based on the beak marking [84-86]. You could help fix this by including only nest as a random effect in the begging analysis, since controlling for chick ID seems impossible. You should then also write in the methods section that you include two observations per chick in analyses, but were unable to control for chick ID.

You should also control for feeding event (FeedingNr?) for both the begging and parental response analyses, since data from multiple chicks on the same feeding event are not independent of each other, and it is pseudoreplication not to account for this non-independence.

*Experimental treatment:
I am also confused by the "context" variable in your excel sheet. Based on your methods [96-103], you food deprived both or neither chick in a weight class. You also coded the first two feeding visits per nest [118-119]. This means that in every feeding visit, there should be two food deprived nestlings. However, in your data sheet, there is only one food-deprived nestling per feeding visit. Either your methods section needs to be rewritten so it is clear what you did experimentally and analytically, or there is a problem with the context variable in your data sheet (which undermines any analysis of the effect of food deprivation).

****
Given the analyses presented, the conclusions are well stated, linked to the original research question, and interpreted appropriately.
Additional comments: [Throughout] I think you clarified the potential distinctions between short and long term need well.

[22-23] How can you be sure that begging signals were the "only" cue parents used? They might have used something that you didn't measure and analyse.

[48] "Selfish" should be "selfishly"

[49] Missing the word "siblings" after "its"

[66] "Siblings" requires an apostrophe

[75] Missing a comma after "food"

[95] Is the control period only from before food deprivation?

[107] "minutes" should be "minute"

[112] If your video analysis was blinded, please include that here.

[140] Either put a space before and after the "=", or don't have spaces at all.

[146] "Greater than" would be better than "superior to"

[Figure 2] Space missing in "andbody"

[Figure 3] Space missing in "massrank"


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: SIZE MATTERS BUT HUNGER PREVAILS—BEGGING AND PROVISIONING RULES IN BLUE TIT FAMILIES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: see general comments.
Experimental design: see general comments.
Validity of the findings: see general comments.
Additional comments: Fresneau et al ms Size matters but hunger prevails – PEERJ
This is a cleverly designed, thoroughly researched experimental study. Basic reporting, experimental design, and validity of findings all meet the standards and scope of PEERJ. Well written text, conclusions well stated.
One question concerning methods: Any indication, that marking nestlings´ beak with black colour influenced parental behaviour?


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: SIZE MATTERS BUT HUNGER PREVAILS—BEGGING AND PROVISIONING RULES IN BLUE TIT FAMILIES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: See general comments
Experimental design: See general comments
Validity of the findings: See general comments
Additional comments: I am satisfied with the changes made for this revised manuscript, and I support its publication. The data structure and methods are much clearer now, and the statistical analyses seem sound.


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: EFFECTS OF SUPPLEMENTAL LIGHTING WITH DIFFERENT LIGHT QUALITIES ON GROWTH AND SECONDARY METABOLITE CONTENT OF ANOECTOCHILUS ROXBURGHII
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The manuscript provides interesting information regarding the use of LEDs as a supplemental lighting in Anoectochilus roxburghii cultivation. The obtained results could be of interest to plant producers and breeders.
Generally, this manuscript is well prepared and meets the scientific standards. I recommend this paper for publication in PeerJ after a major revision. My specific comments/remarks are given below. Some language improvements would also be desirable.

Remarks:
Title page
Please, specify the corresponding author.

Keywords
There is no keywords. Please specify them.

Introduction
The introduction needs to be expanded. What are the findings from previous research with the effect of light on growth and biochemical properties of Anoectochilus roxburghii? What features make it a good choice for this type of research?
In the sentence: “Anoectochilus is a perennial herb that belongs to the genus Anoectochilus (Orchidaceae).”, ‘Anoectochilus’ should be substituted with ‘Anoectochilus roxburghii ‘.

Materials and Methods
Plant materials: Please specify the temperature in the greenhouse. The information ‘12-23°C’ is not precise. Please give the information what temperature was during the day/lighting time and what temperature was during the night.
In line 59 there should be ‘0.55 and 3.8 g’ instead of ‘0.55 g and 3.8’.
In line 60 there should be ‘(50 x 30 x 5 cm)’ instead of ‘(50 cm x 30 cm x 5 cm).
Please specify the photoperiod applied for plantlets growth. Was there applied any other lighting during the day? Please specify (line 69).

Results
Please do not use point after ‘g’ in ‘mg/g.FW’.
There is no reason to write the word ‘yield’ using capital letters ‘YIELD’.

References
This section needs a minor revision; latin names of species should be written in italics; the titles should be written like in a sentence; there is no need to underline names of authors; the full journal titles should be given – please refer to ‘Instructions for Authors’.

Tables
Table 1: Please specify how many replications were used to calculate the means.

Figures
Figures 2 and 3: please include the information about the age of plants.
Figure 4-12: please specify what the given values are, probably means? How many replications were used to calculate the means; what is the meaning of the letters and vertical bars above the columns? Please, specify also the probability.


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: EFFECTS OF SUPPLEMENTAL LIGHTING WITH DIFFERENT LIGHT QUALITIES ON GROWTH AND SECONDARY METABOLITE CONTENT OF ANOECTOCHILUS ROXBURGHII
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment.
Experimental design: Methods need to be described in more detail, specific comments are provided below.
Validity of the findings: Please see my specific comments regarding how results are discussed below.
Additional comments: lines 65-66: Please describe the light treatments in more detail, as “green” can mean different things according to different definitions. Thus report e.g. GL 500-580 nm and the peak wavelength.
line 67: What is the spectrometer manufacturer, city, country?
line 71: Please change height of each treatment, to height of each light fixture.
line 72: Light intensity between which wavelenghts, PAR?
line 77: Were these nine plants different from the ones above, I presume so, because the other ones you freezed? Or did you first do these measurements and then used the same plants for subsequent testing.
lines 84-95: Methods need to be described in more detail, merely “following the method of” is not enough. Key steps need to be described; how the samples were grinded, were subsamples of leaf part used etc. These need to be full sentences where the reader gets the idea how the measurements were done, similarly how it is now written concerning the total flavonoids measurements.

Results section needs rigorous rewriting. As it is, the results are not reported entirely correctly. Please pay detailed attention to what is different from what. It is very important to always state the treatment to what are you comparing against. Please use the opportunity to report the other way around too, so to say, e.g. that what treatments were similar with the control.
line 127: Similarly to leaf number, please report here the stem diamter for BL treatment and for the treatment it compared with.
line 128: Remove “supplemental lighting treatments caused various degrees of increase”, just report those that were significant here and add to which treatment they were compared with.
lines 129-133: One can not say “except GL”, as the only treatment statistically different from control is BL for both fresh and dry weight, as all the other treatments share the same letter with control too.
lines 136-137: Rephrase, as the content did not change statistically significantly.
line 139: Add to the end of the sentence “but this increase was not statistically significant”, to avoid misinterpretation.
lines 149-150: Please leave these kind of speculations out and just state that there were no statistically significant differences.
lines 156-157: Please remove, unnecessary repetition.
lines 162-163: These sentence belongs to the discussion.
lines 165-169: Please rewrite: the content is observed not to change across light treaments except for BL. The last sentence belongs to discussion.
lines 180-181: As the effect was not statistically significant, omit the sentence.
lines 179-187: This paragraph continues with misinterpretation and/or reporting results only in part and/or not stating to which treatment one is comparing against. Please rewrite.

Throughout Discussion: Why are you referring to the specific studies you are citing? Please explain whether it is because the plant species were similar to the one you used or what was the reasoning. Please also vary the way how you write here, now you almost invariably start with e.g. Macedo et al. found that... This makes the text more like a list of studies, not discussion. Please go through the discussion after you have gone through the results and carefully check what you can say: if the effect was not statistically significant, then there were no decreases or increases.
lines 189-194: This paragraph should be in the introduction, not here.
line 195: Please remove the first sentence, it is redundant.
line 196: Please avoid using word “obviously”.
198-199: You simply can not phrase it like this, as there were no statistically significant differences between the light treatments and control.
line 209: “Believed” is not a correct verb to use in scientific article, either they demonstrated or showed something.
line 219: “Chlorophyll b is not sensitive to light quality.” Please rephrase to “Chlorophyll b was not sensitive to light quality in our study.” Or if you are referring to previous studies, references are needed.
lines 223-230: This paragraph should be in the introduction or materials & methods, where you justify your methodology.

Figure 1: It is necessary to have units in the y-axis, preferably µmol/m-2/s-1, and not W/m2 in this case. In addition, please make x-axis scale the same for each panel, to make comparison between light treatments easier.

Figure legends: You need to include the phrase “Values represent mean ± SE…” that you have now for Table 1 legend in each and every figure legend, as they need to be understandable on their own.

Please consider having Figures 6-9 and 11-12 as one figure with different panels of what you now have as separate figures, this would save space and it would make it easier to compare the measured responses and draw conclusions if some treatments affected certain similar responses in a similar manner.


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: EFFECTS OF SUPPLEMENTAL LIGHTING WITH DIFFERENT LIGHT QUALITIES ON GROWTH AND SECONDARY METABOLITE CONTENT OF ANOECTOCHILUS ROXBURGHII
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The revised manuscript entitled: ‘Effects of supplemental lighting with different light qualities on growth and secondary metabolite content of Anoectochilus roxburghii’ deserves publication in PeerJ - however, in my opinion, it still needs some revision. My specific comments/remarks are given below.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: Generally
I recommend proofreading of the manuscript by a native English speaker.
Please make an effort to avoid editorial mistakes (e.g. lack of spacing, double dots, lack of consistency in formatting etc.).

Materials and methods
Is it really necessary to express the acetone concentration with such accuracy - 10.652 mol/l ? The same applies to sections entitled ‘Root activity’, ‘Total Flavonoides’ and ‘Total Polyphenols’.

Results
Please specify the units when you describe parameters, for example stem diameter, root length, chlorophyll content, etc.

Figure and Table Legends
Figure 4, 5, 6, 7, Table 1
In my opinion there is no need to write in the figure legends: ‘In the same row, values with the same superscript letter are not significantly different (P > 0.05); those with different superscript letters are significantly different (P < 0.05)’. This sentence should be written as follows: ‘In the same row, values marked with different letters are significantly different (P < 0.05)’. The same applies to the caption of Table 1.

References
Please, check all references once again because in this section are still mistakes (lack of spacing and italics, double dots, lack of consistency in formatting etc.).


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

Input:
Title: EFFECTS OF SUPPLEMENTAL LIGHTING WITH DIFFERENT LIGHT QUALITIES ON GROWTH AND SECONDARY METABOLITE CONTENT OF ANOECTOCHILUS ROXBURGHII
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment.
Experimental design: No comment.
Validity of the findings: No comment.
Additional comments: The authors have clearly taken the time and effort and carefully made corrections and additions according to the comments and requests by the editor and the reviewers.


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

Input:
Title: RAPID RISE IN TOXIC LOAD FOR BEES REVEALED BY ANALYSIS OF PESTICIDE USE IN GREAT BRITAIN
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Abstract
So the 3 x 10^6 bees dead is somewhat inflammatory, however you do qualify it with the line detailing the many factors that this number does not take into account.  However, following line ’The total potential kill of honeybees (the total number of LD50 doses applied to the 4.6 million….’  I would like you to have some further caveat in the form of ‘While this does not mean this number of bees would be killed, it provides a n indication of the relative change in scale of pesticide application over this period’.

Introduction
L55:  You mention this above, but maybe make it clear that while the paper is orientated towards risks for bees exposure to pesticides poses a threat for numerous beneficial (pest control, decomposition) and biodiversity components of the agro-ecosystem. Given what you  are doing your findings would seem to be relevant to all of these groups, and in fact bees are more of a special case in the sense that a lot of the time the impact is linked to mass flowering crops (although not exclusively)
L57-58:  I don’t think that’s true.  I had a feeling that either Holland or Denmark had very detailed pesticide records (although possibly not going back that far).  I think its reasonable though to use GB as a model to asses this issue given its good records and intensive arable agriculture.
L62-64:  Really all this does is scale it relative to honeybees, although arguably it could be done for any invertebrate used as a model system in the regulatory process (although presumably you would get slightly different results depending on species specific sensitivities).   I am not asking you to change this to include other species, but maybe you could make that point.
L62-64:  Another point here is that (and you were getting that point across to an extent in the abstract) is that this is to provide an idea of the scale of increase, rather than a quantification of mortality.  Specifically LD50 relate to a more or less instantaneous dose.  My point being is that as long as that dose on a given field for a given application is less than the LD50 from a  regulatory perspective (more or less) that’s not a major problem.   By adding over the course of a year you may make the problem seem worse that it is.  As long as you make it clear this is in a  way a ‘unit’ of comparison between years then it should be ok – but it does need to be explicitly explained.   You may want to justify this by stating that simply considering pesticides in terms of kg of active ingredient applied per unit area does not give any idea of relative toxicity of compounds comparable over time from 1990 to 20??
L67 extra .
Methods
L79 state (oral or contact Ld50 values)
L86-87:  Again qualify this and say it s unlikely, but it provides a useful measure for comparison between years for compounds that differ in toxicity…or something like that.

Results
L96.  Why the square brackets?

Discussion
Short and to the point…no real problems here.
Experimental design: see above
Validity of the findings: see above
Additional comments: I like this paper, I think it has an important message about the relative increase in pesticide use.  I think by focussing on LD50s and using these to scale relative pesticide toxicities between years (1990’s into the 2010’s) it provides an interesting relative metric that would be obscured by the use of simply tonnes of a.i.   that said caveats need to be clearly defined that the values given do not necessarily mean 10^15 bees would have been killed (these I highlight below).   As long as that can be made clear (and I see no reason why not) this is an interesting paper.  The caveats need to be in there and to be clearly stated  to stop misinterpretation by the press, although I think you will be lucky not to have this interpreted as pesticides kill 10^15 bees.


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: RAPID RISE IN TOXIC LOAD FOR BEES REVEALED BY ANALYSIS OF PESTICIDE USE IN GREAT BRITAIN
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The reporting is clear, the English good.
The literature references are some what one-sided, although many recent ones included. Why not refer to the well balanced Restatements of Godfray et al. (2014, 2015).?  A majority of citations is to members of the own group of (co-) authors, alsdo in cases where other reviews and data compilations are available.
Experimental design: The research question is well defined, but I doubt the relevance as well as its meaning. Actually it is more covering what is really going on than revealing. This is the choice of the authors.
Validity of the findings: Data is OK, but is used to SUGGEST a conclusion, or actually a meaning. One could argue that this is not speculation, and indeed the authors acknowledge that preservation (lines 64-66; lines 86-87; lines 111-118), nevertheless they step over it and use the evidence just to SUGGEST that the risk has increased a six fold. Which cannot be derived from this analysis.
Additional comments: I will give some general and specific comments here:
The paper is generous with wordings alike: 'suggest', seem, appear, which does not improve the scientific clarity but serves a more political aim, the reader has to become aware that the potential kill has increased (despite the preservation this maybe only ssemingly the case). Actually the aim of the paper: (Lines 55-56) to evaluate the RISKS to bees ... cannot be reached since only the 'poterntial kill says hardly anything (thus nothing0 about risks.
L 30: there is broad consensus: why hide behind the authority of other scinentists, but only cite a own paper? Note that consensus is very often not a good 'quality' criterium.
L49-52: correctly the Authors state that 'Recent studies SUGGEST that ......is CONTRIBUTING....., since most of the studies just show correlations, the Van Dijk study did ignore correlations with other factors (see Vijver & van den Brink, 2014), or were heavily disputed (the Hallamann paper on birds). So 'correlate with' is considered similar to 'suggest to contribute'.
L 58: there are many regions with data on pesticide use in Europe, so I wonder if the statement is true.
L73-74: assuming the same impact of 10 times concentration 1 to 1 time concentration 10  is really nonsens (many species can detoxify low concentrations), only in case of time reinforced toxicity this assumption might be valid (but needs not to be).
L 81-83: it is tricky to derive an LD50 when unknown from 'related' compounds (compare f.i. the Neonicotinoids imidacloprid and thiacloprid! Happily it did not account for a high percentage of cases (L 84).
L104-105: due to the neonics the toxic load APPLIED increased-but how much did the toxic load of the actual exposure increase? Or did it decrease? Neoinics are used primarily in seed coatings, by which only a very small share shows up in the plant (of which a small part in honey and pollen).
L120-128: that neonicotinoids are found in honey, and several other pesticides not, does not reveal anything about their exposure or risk, but just reflects their hydrophilic properties (by which they can systemically withgin the plant reach the pollen and nectar).
L 130-131: this is no reasonable assumption, unless well argued, or supported by data
L 146: assumption should be assumptionS

Conclusion:   the analysis SUGGESTS (citation): My question: does this SUGGESTION, based on an analysis with 'many simplifying assumptions' (citation), warrant a scientific publication?


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

Input:
Title: RAPID RISE IN TOXIC LOAD FOR BEES REVEALED BY ANALYSIS OF PESTICIDE USE IN GREAT BRITAIN
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The language is at times jocular and detracts from the  potential impact of the narrative.  E.g., Ln 114 "if this were so, there would be no bees left in Britain".
Experimental design: The results section needs further development it is insufficiently descriptive and the values given cannot be adequately assessed as presented.
Validity of the findings: Data as presented are not sufficient for the treatment of the material as presented.
Additional comments: This manuscript addresses an important and controversial topic, namely the link between pesticide usage rates and bee declines in Great Britain.  However, the data presented are not sufficiently convincing to support the linking of these two narratives at this juncture.  For instance, the values presented (e.g., Ln 90-97) inadequately capture the complexity of the changes in pesticide usage and treated areas.  Specifically, is the amount of pesticide given the ‘purchased’ rather than ‘applied’ quantity?  Further, how has the cropped land has remained stable and what areas/sectors are being sprayed if the (Ln 91) ‘area treated almost doubled’?   At a minimum, further description is needed in the results section to increase clarity and impact.  Also, the reasoning behind the development of a worst-case scenario, or ‘comparative measure’ (e.g., Ln 65) should be further developed.  For instance, the amount of pesticides found in honey and pollen stores mentioned in the discussion (Ln 120-128) could be moved to the  introduction to lend support to the reasoning behind this approach from the outset.  Finally, the discussion would also benefit from the treatment of other likely contributing stressors and / or the contribution from excluded ‘obscure’ pesticides.


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: PHYLOGENOMIC RELATIONSHIP AND EVOLUTIONARY INSIGHTS OF SWEET POTATO VIRUSES FROM THE WESTERN HIGHLANDS OF KENYA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: 1. Genome assemblies have been deposited in Genbank, which is commendable, but they do not appear to have been made public yet. The short-read data must also be archived, particularly given that non-free closed-source software was used for assembly. The raw reads presumably contain quite a bit of information about virus sequence variation in the plant sampled (beyond the consensus sequences assembled).

2. Providing the multiple alignments constructed (e.g. in some repository such as Zenodo or figshare) would greatly increase the utility of this analysis. Presumably the alignments were carefully inspected and adjusted, but there is no evidence of this in the text.

3. Tree sizes, font, text size, and panel labels are wildly inconsistent (Figures 1 to 5, supplemental figures 1 to 5). Multiple clade-label lines are ambiguous.

4. No interpretation is provided in the "Analysis of recombination" and "Selection pressure analysis across genes" results sections. Consider moving text from the current discussion into those sections. Breaking up the discussion with section headings and folding the current conclusion section into it could further help balance out the manuscript.

5. Manuscript needs more careful proof-reading.
Experimental design: The sampling method used for this observational study is briefly sketched at the start of the methods section but lack of detail prevents evaluation of the scope of inference. How many samples were collected? How many were judged potyvirus-positive? Just one, as implied by line 162? (A grammatical error renders that sentence ambiguous: "the a sweet potato sample that was positive".) What controls were used for RT-PCR? I see that the authors cite their other preprint for sampling methodology, but that manuscript appears to suffer from a similar lack of detail. The single plant used for RNA-sequencing is described as symptomatic, but no indication is given whether symptoms were typical of infection with the viruses emphasized in the text. The rationale for how sequence data from this single plant can suffice for generalizing about the western highlands of Kenya (per the question stated in lines 122 to 124) is not clear.

Genomic analysis in the absence of epidemiological information is fine, but the current manuscript purports to range far beyond that.
Validity of the findings: 1. The relevance of these results for assessing virus spread by vegetative propagation seem unclear, for the reasons stated above. Lines 474 to 477 appear overstated; compare to lines 389–392.

2. Mixed infection with four viruses from distinct species sounds like a lot, but is it truly surprising? It seems essential to better contextualize this observation and avoid implying that sequencing is necessary or cost-effective for assaying mixed infection.

3. I find the "four out of seven programs agree" criterion for calling recombination strange and the averaging of p-values even more puzzling. Consider adding some justification for these choices.
Additional comments: 1. 3D barcharts (Figure 6) are not a perceptually effective type of data display.

2. Per the ICTV "How to write a virus name" document, capitalize the first letter of the first word in the name. Distinguishing the species from the viruses discussed in a few places might clarify meaning.

3. Consider removing "and evolutionary insights" from the title.


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: PHYLOGENOMIC RELATIONSHIP AND EVOLUTIONARY INSIGHTS OF SWEET POTATO VIRUSES FROM THE WESTERN HIGHLANDS OF KENYA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Specific comments

Abstract: Line 59 to 61: The statement “Our findings demonstrate the need for clean planting materials as the first line of control….” is not only misleading but also off-of track. The study did not explore anything about clean seed systems, or virus control. Much as a field survey was done, but the paper has predominantly reported computational evidence and for evolutionary insights of sweetpotato viruses. The recommendation should therefore be inline with what the study discovered. There is nothing about seed systems that the research discovered.

Main text:
The presentation of results and writing style is excellent. However referencing style need to be changed, especially when quoting three or more authors. For example “Tugume, Mukasa and Valkonen, 2016”, this should have been written Tugume et al., 2016. There are many areas where authors need to change this kind of referencing style.

Virus names should be italicized through out. In some places this was forgotten, for example Lines 98, 333.

Line 145: The heading omitted ‘of’ between screening and virus.

After presenting the virus names in full for the first time in the text, the virus abbreviations should be used through out and not repeating the full virus names as has been done many times in the text (Lines, 105, 189-191, 206, 207, 309-311).

Lines 280 – 283: “The discordance between the gene trees and the species trees could be attributed to……This statement is a misplacement. It should have been under discussion section.

Figures: The molecular evolutionary trees (Figs 1 to 5) should be informative. Explain what the scale mean. Is it substitutions/site?. Also the node values…..what are they? bootstrap values? explain them in legend.
Experimental design: The study was executed well with clear design. However, the authors need to explain number of field samples collected, number of leaf samples used in the lab analysis. This information is key in research design.
Validity of the findings: Findings could be validated, but details on virus survey as I indicated above (under experimental design) should be presented.
Additional comments: General comments
This manuscript report the findings of a virus study conducted in Kenya. While this paper clearly shows a huge effort in terms of computational analysis, the information on field survey is somehow limited. The paper should present details of the field survey especially sampling strategy, number of samples collected, number of leaf samples used for laboratory extractions, and number of isolates used for sequencing. This information is key in validating the study and providing insights into the field management and epidemic spread of the viruses, which the center pivot of phytopathological research and development.
This study adds value to evolution of sweetpotato viruses in Kenya, and application of the results are substantial in computational evolutionary studies. I commend the authors for their good computational analysis. In addition, the manuscript is clearly written in professional, unambiguous language. Otherwise, I recommend the paper for publication with few revisions as highlighted in the specific comments section.


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: DAWN CHORUS INTERPRETATION DIFFERS WHEN USING SONGS OR CALLS: THE DUPONT’S LARK CHERSOPHILUS DUPONTI CASE
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Very good, clear and well structured. Almost self-contained (but see general comments)
Experimental design: Good
Validity of the findings: Very good
Additional comments: This paper is a nicely written and clear observational study of the different patterns of calling and singing in a selected bird species.

I am a researcher into animal vocalisation but not an ornithologist; an ornithologist may have other things to say about the work.

The paper shows valuable quantitative evidence about the rates of singing and calling - for one species only, but with sufficient amounts of data and analysis to demonstrate multiple clear generalities about this species in this geographic location. Clear differences between singing and calling activity are demonstrated.

The discussion section provides a very good discussion of the findings, making connections to other findings and ideas in the field.

My requested changes, indexed by line number:

50: "when males start to sing" - should clarify that it is not only males in general. See http://femalebirdsong.org/

82: "it has been suggested that calls may be targeted to the current female" - note that this was quantitatively demonstrated in Stowell et al 2017 (for domesticated zebra finches) 10.1098/rsif.2016.0296

98: "We hypothesised that..." - this sentence is problematic. It conflates two things: the authors' hypothesis about the rates of vocal activity, and the assumption about the function of the vocalisations. Authors should split this sentence into two, to make it clear that the function is not a hypothesis but an assumption, and it is assumed but not tested in this work.

146: "we registered the number of songs" - how did the observer decide what is the boundary between one song and another? The authors should include a sonogram of XC216990 in this paper, annotated to show the reader how this would be counted. I do not know if the authors would consider it to be one song or many.

171: could the authors please explain (in reply) why "site" should be a random effect and not a fixed effect? It was fully within the authors' control and part of the design, and would seem to be a fixed effect.

182: "UPGMA method" - please provide a citation for this; it is not clear what it is.

246 "start time did not vary" - this should say "end time did not vary"

285 typo "signing"

293 typo "i the next step"

Method section generally: how were female vocalisations handled? Were any heard? How was it possible to discriminate them?

Results/discussion section generally: were the male calls observed to occur interactively, e.g. in alternation with female calls, or were there no apparent response relationships?


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: DAWN CHORUS INTERPRETATION DIFFERS WHEN USING SONGS OR CALLS: THE DUPONT’S LARK CHERSOPHILUS DUPONTI CASE
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The literature cited seems adequate and the article structure is fine. The raw data are available and understandable. The paper is self-contained.

The English needs a lot of work. The authors struggle with when to use and not use definite and indefinite articles.  For example, “the” should be inserted before “breeding season” in line 30, before “seasonal pattern” in line 33, before “dawn chorus” in line 53, and before “potential effect” in lines 162-163. The authors should insert “a” before “model species” in line 32, before “large number” in line 77, and before “station location” in line 123. Conversely, “the” could be omitted before “vocal activity” in line 56 and before “most of the breeding period” in line 131. These lists are probably not exhaustive. The authors also struggle with their choice of prepositions. For example, “focused on” rather than “focused in” (line 69), “from then” rather than “since then” (line 130) and “activity of up to” rather than “activity up to” in line 126. Verb tenses and number are also a recurring problem: in line 32 “chose” not “choose,” in line 32 “differs” not “differ,” and in line 237 “suggests” not “suggest.” A few sentences just do not make sense. For example, the third sentence in the abstract starts out: “Studies of the dawn chorus in birds have frequently interpreted their meaning in function of seasonal variation of singing as breeding season advances…” The referent for “their” is unclear as it is a plural pronoun that seems to refer to a singular subject (the dawn chorus). Beyond that, I am unable to make sense of the phrase “their meaning in function of seasonal variation…” Another problematic sentence is in lines 54-62. Overall, the manuscript would benefit from thorough editing for English usage.
Experimental design: Although not much can be inferred about function from seasonal patterns, a description of the patterns presumably would still meet the journal’s standards if it was competently done. The authors need to clarify a few points to allow readers to make this judgment. The authors state that data were taken only on males vocalizing within 250 meters of the observer although vocalizations could be heard from males over up to 1500 meters (lines 122-126). How was the distance to the vocalizing bird determined? Presumably this often had to be determined in the dark so that visual cues would not be available.  Was there any check on these distance estimates?  I’m also unclear on how a single observer simultaneously kept track of vocalizations from up to four males, with each producing up to about 20 songs and 20 calls per period (from the data files). Were the data spoken into a recording?

In the Data collection section of the Methods: please state early on the number of sites used per year, and the number of stations used per site.

GLMMs usually look for directional changes of a dependent variable with changes in the independent variables. Some of the results are written as if that were the case here (e.g. line 187 – “total number of songs … significantly increased”), but others results are written as if the analysis simply looked for variation without a directional trend (line 190 – “calling performance and calling output differed significantly among surveys”). Please clarify.
Validity of the findings: The authors describe the seasonal pattern of the dawn chorus of Dupont’s Lark, distinguishing between patterns in songs and calls, and then attempt to draw inferences about the function of the dawn chorus from their results. One problem with this approach is that it is in general quite difficult to discern much about the function of avian vocalizations from seasonal patterns, in large part because rates of vocalizations can change for reasons having little to do with their benefits (such as energy availability or opportunity costs). Perhaps the strongest inferences can be made for song when song rates decline drastically immediately upon mate acquisition, as occurs in some of the Acrocephalus warblers studied by Catchpole (e.g. Catchpole 1980 Behaviour 74:179). Catchpole, however, was following the reproductive cycles of the individual males whose song rates he was measuring, whereas in the present study the authors do not seem to know where the individuals they have studied are in terms of reproduction at different points in the season, or at least they do not tell the reader anything about this beyond rough seasonal averages. The authors remark (lines 132-134) that their first two surveys correspond to times when most females are building nests and laying their first clutches, which implies that most males were already mated by the first survey, so that the authors cannot ascribe changes in vocalization rates to pairing. Drawing inferences about the function of dawn chorus calls seems particularly difficult because the data do not differentiate between categories of calls (such as alarm calls versus contact calls). The suggestion that calls function in mate attraction (lines 237-238) seems especially dubious given the lack of evidence for a category of calls that might function in this way. I recommend in general backing away from conclusions about the functions of the vocalizations studied.
Additional comments: My two main recommendations are to (1) improve the English, perhaps by getting a native English speaker to edit the text, and (2) to water down any conclusions about the function of dawn chorus vocalizations based on these seasonal pattern data.


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

Input:
Title: DAWN CHORUS INTERPRETATION DIFFERS WHEN USING SONGS OR CALLS: THE DUPONT’S LARK CHERSOPHILUS DUPONTI CASE
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: I see weak justification for the proposal of the study in the first place. Describing the differences in seasonal change between song and “calls” seems fairly trivial. Also, regarding the methodological application for monitoring of bird dawn chorus seems to me that song is mostly used and not calls so it would not be very relevant.

Within bird vocalizations, bird song is a specific group of vocalizations related to reproduction (territoriality and mating). The term bird calls describes a much broader group of vocalizations that include many contexts such as social cohesion, bonding, alarm, feeding, fighting... Therefore, these two concepts cannot be considered as equals, especially if the specific calls are not identified and described during the surveys. Changes in call activity throughout the breeding seasons may or may not be related to territory or mate selection at all but rather to any of the other possible context in which calling occurs (also likely to change during the season). Furthermore it is not mentioned any criteria whatsoever to consider a vocalization as a call or as a song and this is relevant especially if the most universal criterion is not used (e.g. songs are vocalizations related to mate attraction and territoriality). Other possible criteria would be the "acoustic complexity" or the fact that is produced mainly by one sex, which is also not mentioned. I did only a quick search but I found little information about Dupont's lark calls in the papers cited as I only could find the description of the territorial calls. For instance, if it happens to be that the so called territorial call is used also for mate attraction as claimed in the discussion (line 238), what would make this vocalization different from a song?

In line 217 it is considered that "calls" is one kind of vocalization and this is fundamentally wrong for many species since the term "bird calls" includes many kinds of vocalizations produced in different contexts.
Experimental design: Singing is "assumed" to be exclusive for males although it is becoming more obvious that females sing more often than thought. But, as far as I know, calling behavior is definitely not exclusive to any sex so, how can you be sure that calling activity is produced by the male only identifying the direction of the sound? This may bias or introduce confounding factors in the data and therefore the drawn conclusions because
1)	there might be pseudoreplication and/or
2)	calling activity could change for one of the sexes and not for the other which would lead to similar results as shown. The latter phenomenon has been reported in other species (e.g. dippers).

Statistical methods are very poorly reported. No distribution shown for response variable. Also, what family distribution and link function is used in the GLMM? This is basic information when reporting generalized linear mixed models. Finally it is crucial to show the procedure of building the model, running diagnostic test to ensure model assumptions are met and the selection procedure of the final model (or averaging). Model selection is especially important in observational studies.
Validity of the findings: Finding that song and calling activity differ throughout the season is probably expected and probably trivial by itself. Need some stronger justification for the study and a broader perspective in the discussion.
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: DAWN CHORUS INTERPRETATION DIFFERS WHEN USING SONGS OR CALLS: THE DUPONT’S LARK CHERSOPHILUS DUPONTI CASE
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The presentation is much improved over the last submission. The writing is now quite clear and grammatical.
Experimental design: The authors answered my questions about their methods quite adequately, and I am now clear on what they did. I'm not convinced that they actually could tell accurately which birds were or were not within 250 meters, but I'm not terribly concerned about this point.
Validity of the findings: I am happy with how the authors present their conclusions in the present version
Additional comments: Thank you for your attention to my previous comments in revising.


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

Input:
Title: THE IMPORTANCE OF DUNG BEETLES AND ARTHROPOD COMMUNITIES ON DEGRADATION OF CATTLE DUNG PATS IN EASTERN SOUTH DAKOTA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: I think this is quite an interesting study. The writing is professional, but in some cases is a little ambiguous and could use a little further attention-to-detail. The level of background information and context provided by the author is appropriate. The Tables use a particular notation to separate means that I find difficult to quickly interpret (use of two different cases, e.g. AaBd). In general, the results could be reported more succinctly and clearly. There are minor graphical errors (e.g. The error bar on the third groups of bars on Figure 2). There are some typos included in the Figure legends (e.g. Figure 3 – “Half of pats had arthropods excluded compared to allowing uninhibited arthropod colonization”).

It is unclear why means and error are shown instead of the raw data in Figure 3. The entirety of the raw data does not seem to be shared – e.g. it would not be possible to calculate species richness per sample based on the excel files provide by the authors. Reading the methods, I expect the measures of species richness and diversity may be a bit unreliable because different taxa are identified to varying levels of taxonomic resolution (141), and much of the richness of these samples will be cryptic (e.g. diptera larvae) and difficult to estimate. It would be helpful if the authors could justify this approach.

The data included in this publication appropriately constitute a single and comprehensive manuscript.
Experimental design: The research is original and falls within the aims and scope of PeerJ. The research question “This study uses an arthropod exclusion/inclusion system to evaluate the role of dung arthropods on dung degradation over time in eastern South Dakota… We hypothesize that an arthropod exclusion system will limit the colonization in the dung pats and result in a slower rate of pat degradation” would benefit from being described more succinctly.

The authors should ensure that their language reflects that their interest reflects the “consequence” of removing insects from cattle dung, and not the “process” or “means of”. The language that is currently being used is reflective of the latter.

The authors could make a stronger argument as to why e. South Dakota should be a focal/important region to ask these questions.

All evidence suggests that this is well-replicated study that is performed to a high technical and ethical standard. The authors would need to provide the entirety of the raw data (as mentioned above) to ensure their analysis is robust.
Validity of the findings: The authors have made multiple comparisons using the same data-set. It would be useful to include a brief discussion about the possibility of type 1 error when such an approach is used. There may be some issues encountered when assuming the data (e.g. insect abundance) is normally distributed, this should also be discussed.

The concluding thought of this paper was not as strong as the rest of the paper, and did not appropriately encapsulate the results of the study. To me, this is a crucial sentence to get right.

I am a little bit puzzled by the second part of this study (e.g. Table 2). This section does not seem to be as scientifically grounded as the first component. The experiment you describe does not seem to be set up to ask whether/how dung beetles 'drive' the overall insect/arthropod community. I suppose you could argue that dung beetles might serve as an indicator of these variables of interest because they are 'generally easy to identify and quantify'. However, I think the inclusion of this component distracts from your more interesting results (as reported in Table 1), and adds little value to the manuscript as a whole.

As I mention above, I think the authors would benefit by thinking carefully about how they present the results in Tables 1+2. Additional information within the Table legends might help this along. I find it quite overwhelming to look at, particularly the way you have shown the separation of the means. In addition, the authors should note what measure of error they are reporting.

Some of the discussion is oversimplified. For instance, Figure 2A shows that arthropod biomass in late summer was the highest at an intermediate time – which goes against the statement in the discussion “Arthropod community complexity and abundance diminished as the pat aged [L281]”.
Additional comments: Here are some smaller points that I thought might be useful to fix.
L82: See Beynon et. al 2015 for recent economic analysis.
96: Make it clearer that you believe that ‘excluding arthropods’ will be the factor that impairs/delays dung degradation, rather than the excluding system.
152: pseudo replication -> pseudoreplication
159: specimen ->specimens
197: this heading does not read as a complete thought. Please rephrase for clarity.
202: biomass(es) should not be pluralized here
218: please specify what measure of ‘average’
226: How was the community reduced? Diversity, abundance, richness? Please be more specific.
240-241: This result does not make sense, can you please clarify?
242: remind readers about what AFOM means. I forgot by the team I reached this point.
248: Sentences shouldn't usually begin with an acronym
261: was -> were
267: not totally clear you are talking about the arthropods in the ‘exclusion’ treatment
278: I think use of ‘caged’ vs ‘uncaged’ is much more intuitive than the terminology you use elsewhere in this paper.
306: watch ‘significant’ figures, hundredth of a C degree not important.
339: “for the duration of the pat’s life” -
332: Can you discuss the expedited decomposition provided by insects? The 33 days is relative to what? Would be more helpful as a measure of magnitude e.g. 33 days (10% reduction in time)
345: I am not convinced by your argument that ‘dung beetles were significant drives of the overall arthropod community? What does this mean? Can you give a little more context, and strengthen this argument?
357: To the best of my knowledge, I am not aware of any such studies that support this idea. Could you please include references?
359: This is not a terribly strong way of ending your paper. Try to end on a more conclusive note.

Lastly, you would benefit from a more detailed explanation of why you included the ‘sham cage’ treatment. You get into this a bit during the section beginning on L189, but there is room for improvement.


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

Input:
Title: THE IMPORTANCE OF DUNG BEETLES AND ARTHROPOD COMMUNITIES ON DEGRADATION OF CATTLE DUNG PATS IN EASTERN SOUTH DAKOTA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Do the authors plan to include the raw data of the species, species number, etc that they collected and identified? Or perhaps those data are in another manuscript?
Experimental design: The goals of the manuscript aren't particularly clear. Is the goal to examine dung degradation? In addition, the "excluded" treatment doesn't exclude arthropods, it just limits the body size of the arthropods that can enter. Thus, the study is really more about the impact of macrocoprophages in dung degradation as opposed to just microcoprophages -- which is very interesting. Why not focus the MS on this area instead of "excluded" even though arthropods weren't really excluded? There are few places where the authors could clarify methods (what is a sentinel pat, for example?).
Validity of the findings: As stated, the excluded treatments do not really exclude arthropods. Because of this, the authors cannot examine arthropod impacts in isolation despite this being the focus of the findings. See Experimental design section and comments to authors for more info on how this could be easily changed.
Additional comments: This study examines the role of arthropod communities in dung degradation on a South Dakotan cattle pasture field by excluding the majority of arthropods from experimental dung pats. The primary goals seem to be an examination of seasonal differences in degradation and arthropod community structure. This study provides an extensive survey of a wide range of arthropods present at dung pats and demonstrates that macro-coprophages play an important role in dung degradation. The introduction of the manuscript offers a particularly nice review of the literature on dung degradation and the role of arthropods in providing ecosystem services. The large number of adult and larval insects (87k!) that were identified to family and species is impressive. The manuscript is a pleasant read and provides interesting information. There are a few areas that could be improved upon or clarified prior to publication.

Big Picture Concerns
1.	The methods used to collect arthropods likely underestimates the presence of dung beetles. As the authors spend a large portion of their discussion focusing on the role of these species, the authors should address the limitations of their methods in surveying dung beetle diversity. Specifically the authors should address the following:
a.	By placing mesh screen underneath the dung pats, the authors may be limiting the behavior of tunneling dung beetles, which make up a large portion of pasture dung beetle communities. Dung beetle breeding behavior is crucial for their role in dung degradation because a good portion of the dung is moved underground. With the study designed used, adult dung beetles would be eating the dung, but they would not be tunneling. Therefore, degradation of dung is likely underestimated because dung that would have been moved underground is not being relocated.
b.	Furthermore, dung beetles that roll dung away from the pat would not be located on the dung pat and would also be excluded from the authors’ collections. Therefore, the authors may be underestimating the abundance of rolling dung beetles.
2.	The authors wrote “Overall, there was a significant and substantial reduction in the biomass, abundance and diversity of most the dung arthropods in the cages. This allows an isolation of the function of arthropods in degradation of cattle dung.” The last sentence really isn’t true. Micro-coprophages were in the exclosure treatments, so there was no “isolation of the function of arthropods” in this study. Indeed, macro-coprophages were absent, but not arthropods and not all coprophages. A better alternative might be to change the focus of the manuscript from treatments that “excluded” and “included” arthropods to a study of the impact of macro-coprophage exclusion on dung degradation. This is more in keeping with the data at hand and does not require any substantial reworking of the manuscript.
3.	In the discussion, the authors mention that early colonization of pats by dung beetles may drive the differences in dung degradation between exclosure and open pats. The authors, though, do not present evidence that dung beetles are in higher abundances in the early days of dung deposition. This evidence is necessary to support authors’ claims about the importance of early colonizing dung beetles.
4.	The overall goal of the study is not clear. Where the authors wrote “These ecosystem services provided by dung beetles (as well as other members of the dung arthropod community) have an economic value to the ranching operation, but most of the numbers used to generate these values are at least 37 years old  (Beynon et al. 2012; Fincher 1981; Losey & Vaughan 2006).” Follow this with “Thus, our goal was to…” to specifically state the goal of the work.
5.	In the introduction, the authors should consider discussing previous knowledge and research about variation in dung beetle communities across space and seasons. Previous research has worked to demonstrate why dung beetle communities vary temporally and spatially and what such variation means for dung degradation on both pasture and non-agricultural land. A discussion of these results is missing from the introduction, but is intricately linked with the authors’ statement that this research will demonstrate “how elements of this community affect degradation.”
6.	In the introduction, the authors mention that the South Dakota pasture landscape has changed dramatically since previous arthropod studies were conducted. The authors should expand on this statement and explain how the landscape has changed. Is there more or less land being used for agriculture? Have the methods used for this agriculture changed? Is there less area remaining as tall grass prairie? These details are important for the ecology of the arthropod community, but are only minimally discussed by the authors.
7.	In the methods, the authors should consider statistical analyses that describe the differences between the early season and late season experiments. The authors state that there were significant changes between the two seasons in their results section, but the statistics used for these analyses are missing from the methods portion.
8.	Throughout the results and figures, the manuscript addresses both biomass and abundance of arthropods. The authors should clarify what these measures tell the reader about the arthropod community – what information do biomass and abundance independently provide? Otherwise, these should be combined as it seems repetitive to describe these results in different paragraphs and in different figures. If the authors choose to keep both figures, then consider clarifying why providing both biomass and abundance is important for the reader.
9.	The big picture of this study is to examine the role of the arthropod community in degrading dung. The results addressing this big picture are those discussing the differences in dung degradation between the exclosure and open pats. The results discussing the differences in arthropod communities between exclosure and open pats simply tell the reader that the exclosure methods worked (to a degree, since not all arthropods were excluded). The big picture results, though, are buried by the less important result that the exclosures worked. Similarly, the discussion first addresses the differences in arthropod abundance in great detail before reaching the key discussion about differences in dung degradation. The authors should consider reorganizing their results and discussion sections to lead with dung degradation.
10.	Regarding the analyses about the role of dung beetles in the arthropod community, the authors do not address the question of whether dung beetle abundance correlates with dung degradation, which seems to be the bigger picture question than the correlation between dung beetle abundance and overall arthropod abundance.
11.	In figure 4, the authors do not describe why increases in dung beetle diversity should predict increases in abundance. Why explore this correlation?
12.	The manuscript notes that “Two-way ANOVAs were used to investigate how dung pat age and exclusion cages affected dung pat and arthropod characteristics including pat wet weight, dry weight, moisture content, organic matter content, and arthropod biomass, abundance, species richness (number of morphospecies found), species diversity (Shannon H), and abundance of family Scarabaeidae.” In total, that is 18 different tests. Yet, the manuscript later includes the following: “The sham cages had similar arthropod communities and dung characteristics with the no cage treatment in 20 of the 22 statistical comparisons of different dung arthropod community groups and dung degradation metrics.” What are the 22 statistical tests?
13.	The conclusions state “Degradation of dung pats was increased by 30% (approximately 30 d) by allowing insects access to pats.” However, in the caged experiments, insects did have access to pats. See comment 2 above.
14.	Throughout the manuscript, the authors discuss the exploration of the arthropod community and dung degradation “across treatments” or “across sampling periods”. In these cases, “across” should be changed to “between” since there are only two sampling periods and two treatments.

Specific line items
L 52-53: The authors mention that “degradation” of the dung pat reduces nutrient availability, but it is unclear what “degradation” means in this sentence. Are the authors referring to the leaching of nutrients such as P and N? It would be clearer to define this term before using it in L 52-53 or reference it more clearly in L 50-51.
L 57: The authors should be more descriptive when describing that dung can take up to 3 years to degrade in other systems. Are the author’s describing systems other than agricultural land, systems experiencing other climate patterns, etc…?
L 78-79: It is unclear what types of species the authors are referring to as “predator and parasitoid species.” In the sentence’s context, it appears the authors are describing dung beetles, but dung beetles are not predators of pest larvae. The authors should clarify this statement and include a citation.
L 81-82: The paper does not attempt to generate an economic estimate of dung beetle ecosystem services. Since the authors are not filling this knowledge gap, this sentence feels out of place in the introduction. Furthermore, this sentence weakens the author’s argument about the importance of dung beetles on pasture land.
L 83: The authors should consider deleting “dung” before arthropods.
L114, 116: The description of “sentinel pats” is unclear. Is every pat placed in the field a sentinel pat or is this a special descriptor? Explain sentinel in more detail and describe how sentinel pats were used as opposed to non-sentinel pats.
L 141-143: This sentence is unclear. To clarify, the authors should replace “species were identified to at least the family level” to “specimens were identified to at least the family level.” If the authors are not identifying the specimens to the species level, it is unclear how the species are then identified to family level. There is also an error near the citation at the beginning of line 143 which confuses the meaning of this sentence – to clarify, change to “to species by Ratcliff…”
L 171: It is unclear what the numbers “14, 1, 12, and 13 morphospecies” refer to.
L 181-186: The authors do not describe the methods used to test whether the changes across the season were statistically significant. The authors should reserve the use of “significant” to statistical analyses.
L 226: delete “affected”
L 267: consider adding “the arthropods found in the exclosure treatments…”
L 295-296: The sentence beginning with “Although this study,” feels out of place. Throughout the rest of this paragraph, the authors are describing arthropod abundance. Ending this paragraph talking about dung degradation is not a clear, logical transition.
L370: The authors should revise their use of keystone species. The dung beetle community is diverse and made up of many species. Some of these species may be more important than others, so the whole community should not be labeled as a keystone species.
Table 1: Title of Table 1 isn’t exactly clear. Suggested changes are in parentheses: The effects of age (Days since dung deposition) on degradation of physical and chemical characteristics of dung pats with arthropod community exclusion/inclusion.
Table 2. Remove “throughout grazing season” from description. This is not throughout the season, but is rather two time points during the season. The title would therefore be: Relationships of dung beetle abundance, richness, and diversity to the arthropod community characteristics in dung pats from the inclusion treatment.


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: ULTRASTRUCTURAL ALTERATIONS IN THE RETINAL PIGMENT EPITHELIUM AND PHOTORECEPTORS OF A STARGARDT PATIENT AND THREE STARGARDT MOUSE MODELS: INDICATION FOR THE CENTRAL ROLE OF RPE MELANIN IN OXIDATIVE STRESS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This manuscript reports on a detailed work examining retinal structures in transgenic animals. The article is very extensive, with sufficient background and literature. It is written in a style that is easy to read and understand. The paper follows the structure of the Journal.
Experimental design: The article is within the remit of the journal.

The work examines the finer details of morphological changes associated with Stargardt disease animal models. The goal is to plug the whole in our knowledge base in regards to ultra-structural alteration induced by genetic modification.

The investigators examined many aspects of the changes that is summarized in Table 1. This investigation relays on  the accuracy of methodology and I have some concern about the way the tissue was prepared for examination. For the most accurate results, animals usually perfusion fixed, that ensures the best preservation of morphology. Removing the eye and post-fixed often introduces postmortem artifacts. I see no evidence that this had been controlled for. This is even more significant for the human eye samples that was fixed 48 hours death. Relaying on that tissue for fine details is unlikely to reflect real life situation, though probably the best one can lay a hand on.

It is not entirely clear whether the method used for fixation is really cap[able of preserving lipids in the tissue, and as such the lipid section appears to be over interpreted, but this might just be my lack of knowledge of the methodologies.

I am unable to judge appropriately whether the statistics are appropriate for the study, but it would be important to check this as the used method of analysis is somewhat outside the usual methods that most people use. If this is appropriate, I suggest a short explanation why this method and what the advantage over the more regular methods are.

It will be important that the Authors carefully check the manuscript and fix the inconsistencies in reporting numbers of samples used. It is very confusing for this reviewer.
Validity of the findings: This is a largely descriptive work. This is NOT a weakness, as we are lacking details of many diseases still introduce high risk methods in trying to treat the disease. We do need proper examination of diseases associated processes, and while this paper is following one line of interest in proving the detrimental effect of lipofuscin accumulation in the RPE, an idea that is not shared equally by the eye community, still add to our knowledgeable.

Whether the data is robust enough for publication, rely on how good the methodology is, and, as above, I have issues with it, but this could be only my lack of knowledge.

Whether the work on isolated pigment really adds to the work I am not entirely sure.

All in all, the question asked is inte3resting, whether there is enough evidence to clearly couple oxidative damage to the processes is somewhat less convincing without identification of molecular changes representing oxidative changes.
Additional comments: It is commendable to try to tackle issues described in this manuscript using largely morphology. The authors has a long track record in publishing high quality morphological works. There needs to be assurances that this work lives up to the standards of previous works.


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: ULTRASTRUCTURAL ALTERATIONS IN THE RETINAL PIGMENT EPITHELIUM AND PHOTORECEPTORS OF A STARGARDT PATIENT AND THREE STARGARDT MOUSE MODELS: INDICATION FOR THE CENTRAL ROLE OF RPE MELANIN IN OXIDATIVE STRESS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: They speculate that melanin protect from oxidative stress, but do not present results to support that.
Additional comments: The manuscript fit to a very interesting field related to retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) degeneration and it is clearly written. I commend the authors for their extensive data set.

The main goal of the manuscript is the evaluation among the three models; however, the data (although probably with more details) confirm previous results but are not new. In addition, in the case of the human patient, the authors showed alterations in the RPE but not that in the retina photoreceptors cells, as indicated in the title.

In figure 7, the representative electronic microscopic images of Bruch’s membrane, indicate a significant difference in the thickness of Bruch’s membrane, that have been previously described; but that is not observed in the bottom part. Then, the images are not representative.

Figure 8, can be very important. The image of the retina is not presented, although in the text indicated that photoreceptor cells are almost completely degenerated. The figure is focus on the elevated content of pigment granules and lipofuscin; but the cell structure is lost. It is indicated that Bruch´s membrane is thickened, but the dimensions should be presented and compared with a normal individual.
Discussion is extensive. I found obvious that the Abca4-/-.Rdh8-/- mice show alterations not observed in the Abca4-/-, but it is interesting that albino mice showed greater alterations than the pigmented Abca4-/-; although the speculation that melanin can protect in some way for degeneration is reasonable, the authors do not present evidence for that.
Based in the literature the authors speculated that the effects observed in RPE morphology in mutant mice are due to an oxidative stress, but they not present evidence for that. Also, a variety of studies has demonstrated melanin as a potential scavenger of reactive oxygen species, as mentioned by the authors; therefore, results on figure 9 do not support additional information.


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: ULTRASTRUCTURAL ALTERATIONS IN THE RETINAL PIGMENT EPITHELIUM AND PHOTORECEPTORS OF A STARGARDT PATIENT AND THREE STARGARDT MOUSE MODELS: INDICATION FOR THE CENTRAL ROLE OF RPE MELANIN IN OXIDATIVE STRESS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The Authors address all the issues I raised and I am satisfied with their responses.
Experimental design: Adequate to answer the questions raised.
Validity of the findings: Modifications made to clarify previous issues.
Additional comments: Congratulation for an interesting study.


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

Input:
Title: ULTRASTRUCTURAL ALTERATIONS IN THE RETINAL PIGMENT EPITHELIUM AND PHOTORECEPTORS OF A STARGARDT PATIENT AND THREE STARGARDT MOUSE MODELS: INDICATION FOR THE CENTRAL ROLE OF RPE MELANIN IN OXIDATIVE STRESS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The authors answer most of the comments, figures were improved and now they showed evidence of oxidative stress in the retina of the mutant mice.
However, I do still some comments:
1. From the results, it is clear the high variability of individuals respect to different parameters such as the thickening of Bruch membrane. I can see that the age is important; in fig.1B the 7 months albino WT, showed the same outer segments length than the Abca -/- mutant at the same age.
 In this respect, in the fig. S 3, the number of photoreceptor nuclei appear similar to the WT, although disorganized ; which is the age of the mice in this figure?
2. In the human experiments, time of diagnoses. How the authors interpreted the high content of pigment granules in the RPE patient (fig 8B).
3. It is clear that melanin has an important role in RPE, as has been reported for other authors and mentioned by the authors. I think discussion is long, and now another paragraph was added, which in fact support my comment.
4. The results and discussion support the fact that other factors participate in the disease , then I consider important that based on their results the authors propose which mutant may be a better model to study the Stargardt disease.


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: ULTRASTRUCTURAL ALTERATIONS IN THE RETINAL PIGMENT EPITHELIUM AND PHOTORECEPTORS OF A STARGARDT PATIENT AND THREE STARGARDT MOUSE MODELS: INDICATION FOR THE CENTRAL ROLE OF RPE MELANIN IN OXIDATIVE STRESS
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comments
Experimental design: No comments
Validity of the findings: The authors did adequate modifications
Additional comments: The authors answer all my comments ,and these were clarified
along the manuscript. I appreciate the effort of the authors.


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: MECHANICAL/THERMAL SENSITIVITY AND SUPERFICIAL TEMPERATURE IN THE STUMP OF LONG-TERM TAIL-DOCKED DAIRY COWS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This is a very well written and important study, as tail-docking of dairy cattle is an important animal welfare problem in the dairy industry across the globe. This is a study that can be useful to the field if properly discussed, especially its limitations. Please re check the order of the values presented and please include a discussion about the meaning of the results found and applicability of the results to the care of dairy cattle..
Experimental design: 1-	M&M: Missing important details to the full comprehension of the study.
This study seems to be performed appropriately, but the materials and methods are lacking information.
Validity of the findings: Interesting discussion about pain and sensitivity around amputated limbs and tails in other animals. However, the introduction is not connected to the introduction. Also, it is missing a discussion on a major part of the meaning of the results found and applicability of the results in the care of dairy cattle.
Additional comments: Title : Please include an space between Mechanical and thermal.
Line 13: please modify for “ Animal Welfare level”.
Line 14: Incomplete sentence
Line 55: This is an old citation. Many other countries have banned this practice since 2011, such as the USA.
Line 68: Same comment
Line 80: Please include more details about the housing, and the tail-docking procedure. Details such as, who did it? Location on the tail where the docking was performed? And etc.
Methodology: These are common tests that have been performed before, please include citations for the methods used and explain the adaptation made.
Line 124: There are many other co-variables that could influence this model, such as place of docking, and cow body weight. Why just age was included in the model? Also, which Chi-square test was performed?
Line 161: New paragraph.


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: MECHANICAL/THERMAL SENSITIVITY AND SUPERFICIAL TEMPERATURE IN THE STUMP OF LONG-TERM TAIL-DOCKED DAIRY COWS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors performed a well designed study with clear and significant results. Although there was some individual variation in the reaction of the cows, the conclusions are that tail docking has consequenses for the welfare of the cows involved.

The presentation of the findings are clear and the available literature is included in the discussion of the results.

Just a few minor (spelling) comments:

150 Tail-docked cows showed significantly less pressure pain threshold compared to controls
Tail-docked cows showed significantly LOWER pressure pain threshold compared to controls

157 associated to an increase degree of response variability
associated to an increaseD degree of response variability

159 Another factors that may influence the higher values
Other factors that may influence the higher values

161 Start new paragraph

188 over time, if continues for more than 6 month,
over time, if IT continues for more than 6 monthS,

200 tail-docked cows had an increase response
tail-docked cows had an increaseD response
Experimental design: The authors performed a well designed study with clear and significant results.
Validity of the findings: The authors performed a well designed study with clear and significant results.
Additional comments: The authors performed a well designed study with clear and significant results. Although there was some individual variation in the reaction of the cows, the conclusions are that tail docking has consequenses for the welfare of the cows involved.

The presentation of the findings are clear and the available literature is included in the discussion of the results.

Just a few minor (spelling) comments:

150 Tail-docked cows showed significantly less pressure pain threshold compared to controls
Tail-docked cows showed significantly LOWER pressure pain threshold compared to controls

157 associated to an increase degree of response variability
associated to an increaseD degree of response variability

159 Another factors that may influence the higher values
Other factors that may influence the higher values

161 Start new paragraph

188 over time, if continues for more than 6 month,
over time, if IT continues for more than 6 monthS,

200 tail-docked cows had an increase response
tail-docked cows had an increaseD response


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: MECHANICAL/THERMAL SENSITIVITY AND SUPERFICIAL TEMPERATURE IN THE STUMP OF LONG-TERM TAIL-DOCKED DAIRY COWS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: Introduction and Background.
This section could use some additional work.  The quality of the writing in this section contrasts significantly with the quality of the writing in the discussion.  The justification for the study is poorly developed and in terms of the objective of measuring superficial temperature is not developed at all.
There appears to be some confusion in the first paragraph around the benefits vs the welfare issues around docking.  Perhaps the intro could be restructured to identify tail docking as a controversial practice with few studies supporting claims of improved cleanliness and disease to the point that many countries and organizations such as the AVMa coming out against the practice.  The tone of the current introduction is quite the opposite
The novely of the study  is limited to the location.  Such a study may not have been done on a commercial farm in Chili previously  but similar work has been done in research facilities in the US. (Eicher and Chang’s work)
The superficial temperature description in the materials and methods section could be move to the beginning of this section as it is done before the other tests.
Line 48 – “removal of an important part of the tail” is not very helpful in describing what is actually done.  Perhaps the authors could describe how much of the lower part of the tail is usually removed.
Line 51 change different studies to other studies
Line 57problem with the sentence here.  “ and disbudding should be performed minimizing” …could be changed to “ should be performed in a manner that minimizes…”  but the Chile reference should be checked so the sentence is accurate.
Line 60-61  delete “ with the consequently” and replace with “ resulting in a “
Line 62  “ Contradictory evidence…” makes no sense here.  I am not sure what the authors are trying to say.  Perhaps expand the thought.
Line 68-69  the aim of determining the superficial temperature of the stump Is not justified in the intro
Line 72 “ change in a commercial farm to on a commercial farm
Line 73:  delete “ with confined system”
Line 88 change to “ I n charge of identifying and recording positive reactions…”
Line 92 delete “previous” and replace with “prior to” or “before”
Line 116 change stimulus to stimuliLine 147-148 already stated in introduction delete
Line 169-170  Change  “ this association may reveal that it is possible that these animals developed a disorder associated to the development of a tail stump neuroma”  to “this association suggest that animals may have developed tail stump neuromas as reported previousl and in other species (refs)
 I believe work by Cheng and Eicher has already demonstrated this finding.
Line 188  missing word.  Should read  “ if it continues”  not “if continues”
Line 191 change “ dock heifers had” to dock heifers were
Experimental design: Not clear in materials and methods how long after tail docking the study was performed.  Mean and range should be reported.
The document reads as if the researchers were able to assign animals to different treatments  it is unclear why a 133 to 31 distribution was selected.
The only criteria mentioned for animal selection is the lack of disease.  Were the two groups blocked for other characteristics, parity, age, size, breed etc.
Not clear in materials and methods about how frequently, which days, after docking were the measurements taken.
Numerous places in the materials and methods section the authors clearly identify where measures are taken for the  TD animals but provide no information about where on the tail measures are taken for the control group.  For example line 99 .  Similarly, for temperature not clear if temperatures were taken in similar locations for both groups.
Validity of the findings: Very limited – one paragraph with minimal novelty
Very limited analysis in table 1
Data in figures is well presented and analyzed
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: MECHANICAL/THERMAL SENSITIVITY AND SUPERFICIAL TEMPERATURE IN THE STUMP OF LONG-TERM TAIL-DOCKED DAIRY COWS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This is a very well written and important study, as tail-docking of dairy cattle is an important animal welfare problem in the dairy industry across the globe. In my opinion, the review form of this paper addresses most of the reviewers concerns. I believe the authors did a great job in addressing the comments from the three reviewers.  The limitations of the study are now presented but it requires a more detailed discussion of the factors that could have been improved in this study. I have just a couple of comments to add.
Experimental design: This is a well-performed experiment, the revised version of the manuscript elucidated most of my questions about the methods used.
Validity of the findings: Tail-docking of dairy cattle is an important animal welfare problem in the dairy industry across the globe. This research is an important contribution to the long-term effects of the tail amputation.
Additional comments: This is a very well written and important study, as tail-docking of dairy cattle is an important animal welfare problem in the dairy industry across the globe. In my opinion, the review form of this paper addresses most of the reviewers concerns. I believe the authors did a great job in addressing the comments from the three reviewers.  The limitations of the study are now presented but it requires a more detailed discussion of the factors that could have been improved in this study. I have just a couple of comments to add.

Minor comments:

Title : The modifications to the title did not make sense. I suggest: Long-term mechanical/thermal sensitivity and superficial temperature in the stump of tail-docked dairy cows.
Line 95: Please, change “modalities” to “methods”.
Line 126: Is there a reference for this methods or at least some parts of it.
Line 166: include the criteria for backwards elimination.
Line 169: If not the standard package, please include the name and reference of the package used.
Line 176: P values should be reported at maximum of 3 decimal places
Line 231: Please explain the mechanism associated with how this relate to the results found, also include the future studies that could be done in this topic.
Line 244: Which other factors? Also, please expand how the animals and the methods could be improved.
Please include a future research paragraph or throughout the discussion. This is not the last study that should be done in this topic.


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: MECHANICAL/THERMAL SENSITIVITY AND SUPERFICIAL TEMPERATURE IN THE STUMP OF LONG-TERM TAIL-DOCKED DAIRY COWS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: All the points raised in my first review are addressed.
Experimental design: All the points raised in my first review are addressed.
Validity of the findings: All the points raised in my first review are addressed.
Additional comments: All the points raised in my first review are addressed.


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: HABITAT USE, PREFERENCE, AND UTILIZATION DISTRIBUTION OF TWO CRANE SPECIES (GENUS: GRUS) IN HUIZE NATIONAL NATURE RESERVE, YUNNAN–GUIZHOU PLATEAU, CHINA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript by Kong et al is clear and well written. The Introduction addresses properly the topic of the Study, while Study Area, Methods and Results are well structured and unambiguous. Figures and Tables are clear.
In the Conclusions section, the final sentence (lines 295-296) is rather vague; I suggest to add some details or examples of possible management strategies useful in the context studied by the Authors.
A few minor notes:
1.	In the pdf version of the ms I highlighted some spelling mistakes;
2.	Line 108. Please add at least one source for the transect method;
3.	Line 120. An important detail which is missing is the distance from the transects (up to 500 m? unlimited? other?) within which birds were counted;
4.	Thomas & Taylor 1990  is not included in the References list;
5.	Line 172. “Luca” is the name of the first author, not the surname. See References   list for the correct quotation.

In conclusion, I recommend the manuscript for publication.
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: No comment