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

Input:
Title: A NEW KENTRIODONTID (CETACEA: ODONTOCETI) FROM THE EARLY TO MIDDLE MIOCENE OF THE WESTERN NORTH PACIFIC AND A REVISION OF KENTRIODONTID PHYLOGENY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: I liked reviewing this paper, which I hope to see published on PeerJ soon. The new taxon description is detailed and careful, and all the figures are excellent. The issues dealt with in Gou & Kohno's manuscript are overall relevant to the palaeocetological community.
Before publication, however, a work of check and revision of the English text is in my opinion strongly needed. English is not my mother tongue, so I can help just a little on this issue; nonetheless, in the attached edited file, I suggested many proposals of edits that mostly (but not exclusively) encompass the English text. The authors might consider having their manuscript language-checked by a native English speaker.
On a more 'personal' note, I feel a bit weird by observing that the diagnosis of Kentriodon has reduced to a single character regarding the size of the external acoustic meatus. Might it be to the rather incomplete nature of K. schneideri, which in your analysis results as the basalmost member of Kentriodon?
Furthermore, some comparisons with Kentriodon hoepfneri might be useful, at least in the diagnosis section.
Experimental design: This is a rigorous and careful description of a new species equipped with a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis that offers new insights on the evolution of kentriodontids.
Validity of the findings: I would only suggest the authors to reconsider the second paragraph of their Discussion: in my opinion, it might be more focused and to the point. The first paragraph of the Discussion is mostly goo but it also might be made more tight and locally refocused (see my suggestions in the attached edited file).
Additional comments: Dear authors,
I must acknowledge the great work you did - I really liked reading your work. I think that your paper can undoubtedly be accepted following moderate revisions. Here I say 'moderate' instead of 'minor' only because the number of corrections I would like to ask you is not negligible, and because a work of check and revision of the English text is in my opinion strongly needed. No doubt you will be able to do that quite easily and in suitable time!
Bests,
the reviewer


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

Input:
Title: A NEW KENTRIODONTID (CETACEA: ODONTOCETI) FROM THE EARLY TO MIDDLE MIOCENE OF THE WESTERN NORTH PACIFIC AND A REVISION OF KENTRIODONTID PHYLOGENY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Guo and Kohno report the description of a new species of kentriodontid -- a small, extinct cetacean -- from the middle Miocene of Japan. In general, this manuscript is clear and well written. There are widespread and consistent grammatical mistakes that I've identified in the General Comments (below), which should be fixed. This manuscript provides a straight forward morphological description of an incomplete skull (along with other elements), which serve to underpin the establishment of a novel taxon, specifically a new species in the genus Kentriodon. The osteology is completely described, well illustrated and labeled, and its surrounding context (e.g., stratigraphic context) is well stated. There are no concerns insofar as basic reporting.
Experimental design: The primary analysis was phylogenetic, and the authors do a good job of showing their work -- it builds on recent morphological analyses, and they spell out the source matrices, the relatives strengths, and the specifics of how they improved on past work. In this way, the manuscript provides a solid advancement in understanding the systematics of this long-known (but chronologically understudied) taxonomic group. The analyses and explanations are all straightforward and consistent with general reporting for these details among practicing fossil cetacean systematicians.
Validity of the findings: The manuscript is weakest on the underlying arguments about the evolution of Kentriodontidae. The authors should first state clearly what the general historical thinking has been, and be clear about the studies: some considered them paraphyletic stem delphinoids (in the modern parlance, though not at the time of the studies); others did indeed propose a monophyletic Kentriodontidae sister to Delphinoidea. Others still argued for kentriodontids being polyphyletic. A real contribution in this regard would be a nice figure showing a summary of the different phylogenetic hypotheses, even in a simplified format. Geisler et al. 2011 does this well, for example. After all, the novel contribution of this study is the support for a monophyletic Kentriodontidae and genus Kentriodon.

The authors are also weak on matters of species richness. How many kentriodontids through time are there? Simply saying "a rich diversity" is vague and not compelling. It is easy to generate such a plot at any taxonomic level using data from the Paleobiology Database -- which can be cited as such. Are they more or less rich, per unit of geologic time, than other odontocetes? More or less than crown delphinoids? The authors owe the readers a bit more on these answers to explain why kentriodontids are interesting, but have largely escaped detailed study.

Lastly, the connection between tympanoperiotic specializations for hearing and diversification are unfounded, unclear and speculative. Speculation is fine, but there's not logic nor specifics to WHY some kinds of suites of tympanoperiotic specializations would confer a given functional result. Some have recently tried to do this with external morphology (e.g., Gutstein et al. 2014), or with internal microCT scans of the internal laminae of the cochlea. But not one has drawn a connection between anatomy and diversification -- why? Why not? The authors provide no details, nor any about relative orgination and extinction rates among Delphinida that would support these claims. Overall, this speculation comes off unpersuasive. What would be a testable hypothesis here? The authors should ponder that.
Additional comments: Specific comments:

Throughout the manuscript, the full taxonomic name and authority citation needs to be only stated once, at first mention -- subsequent mentions do need need to use the full author and year.

l. 21, Change to "consists" from "is consisted"

l. 23, Add "a" to "shares a unique"

l. 24, What does "it" refer to? The character state or the taxon? Please clarify.

ll. 25-26,  Add "a" to "a dorsolateral edge" and "that" to "foramen that is formed" and edit the last item as "and three or more anterior dorsal infraorbital foramina."

ll. 28, It's well said in the Discussion section; suggest editing as "yielded a consensus showing all previously identified kentriodontids as a monophyletic..."

Ll. 30-31, What's a dynamic renewal? I think it's just a character state reversal. Please clarify and do not embellish.

l. 36, "most diversified" is a bit clunky -- "most species-rich group of living marine mammals" might be more appropriate. "Origin and adaptation" is also an antiquated way of talking about studying evolutionary origins. I would say "evolutionary origins are still a puzzle" instead. A puzzle is a metaphor, not a literal construct.

l. 39, There are better references (and more recent ones) for the high diversity of delphinioids in the late Neogene -- please cite 21st century references and be specific "high species richness." Taxonomic richness is just one measure of diversity.

l. 41, Edit: characteristics or character states, but not characters.

l. 42, Edits: nasals (plural); and premaxillae -- not premaxillary bones

l. 43, "retained in kentriodontids" implies a polarity of character states that should be more clear -- many living phocoenids have symmetrical facial bones.

l. 44, Edit: evolutionary patterns (plural) -- because there's likely more than just one! Morphology, body size, origin and extinction, etc.

ll. 47, 49, 64, 66, 112, 503, 571, 574, delete "the" from "the kentriodontids"

l. 50, Add "a" to "a different combination"

l. 51, Add "in to "in a broad sense"

l. 59, Please choose another verb than "rectify" -- I am not sure what's meant here. The authors of that study simply do not recover a monophyletic Kentriodontidae. The grammar needs to be fixed throughout this sentence.

l. 62, Edit: "in a different phylogenetic typology." These words will help with the precision of the sentence.

l. 63, Edit: "the relationships among Delphinoidea are still"

l. 66, It's unclear how you reassess the relationships with a molecular consensus -- can you be more precise. The verb-subject agreements and grammar of this sentence need to be fixed.

ll. 92, 96, 115, Edit: "X kentriodontid taxa" instead of "X taxa of kentriodontids"

l. 102, Please do not use "'lower'" in quotes nor in any euphemistic way. If basal branching clades are meant, then say so.

l. 104, Which two streams of studies? It is very unclear, even after re-reading several times. Please state it once again, for the reader's benefit. This sentence also requires some preposition maintenance, especially on l. 107: "far too different from each other."

ll. 117-132, This entire paragraph needs careful scrubbing for the distinction between rock-time and time units: upper Miocene is not the same thing as late Miocene, and the authors need to be more clear about provenance from geography versus stratigraphy. Essentially, all of the stated kentriodontid taxa need be harmonized for these distinctions.

l. 152, Edit heading as "Emended Family Diagnosis" -- but why is the rank of family being used here when the preceding systematics are rank-free clades? I suggest simply saying ""Emended Diagnosis of Kentriodontidae," for simplicity.

l. 153, Edit: "character states"

ll. 162, 469, It is incorrect to use "circa" as an equivalent word for "approximately." Circa is a temporal word to refer to chronological time -- not distance.

l. 170, Does "including" really need to be abbreviated in an online open-access journal? I think not.

l. 196, Edit: "the 1940s" and edit "from a locality close to the Mabechi River"

l. 201, Edit: "a diatom flora" or more clearly "diatoms"

l. 206, Edit: again, "richness of diatoms"

l. 207, The Denticulopsis praelauta Zone number must be stated, if it exists. It was not identified in l. 201.

l. 201, Typo of Desmostylus

l. 212, Edit: "the suggested environment"

l. 218, delete the word "away" it is not necessary. "Choanae" are plural, thus it must be "choanae are cracked"

l. 285, Typo, bony nares.

l. 329, delete the word "away" it is not necessary

l. 443, Question: are there any measurements possible for C1? An OCB measurement would permit a body size estimate.

l. 457, Typo: Delphinidae

l. 458, Misspelling and also: did any one accuse kentriodontids of being ancestral to delphinoids? I suspect not -- no modern worker writes in this way. The issue had always been whether they were a sister group or paraphyletic stemward of crown delphinoids.

ll. 476-483, The genus is monophyletic, according to the analyses. Worth stating!

l. 496, Edit, "so-called"

l. 497, Edit, "their" not "there"

l. 498, Edit, "i.e." is poorly used here -- it means "as in," not "e.g.," which means for example. Here, it would be much more effective to say "such as" or "e.g."

l. 500, Edit: "different from molecular phylogenetic analyses"

l. 509, 529 Which diagram? A figure in this manuscript? Be more precise.

ll. 544-561. Do any of these characters have more or less to do with specialization of hearing, relative to other odontocetes? Otherwise, this list is a perhaps not very compelling. Using the word "peculiarities" on l. 564 is not sufficiently precise and it should be explained and identified better. What features are specialized for kentriodontids and how did that make them different from co-occurring taxa?

l. 572-574, Please edit this sentence for clarity, especially minding prepositions.

l. 574, Why the speculation? What is the basis for supposing hearing specializations "probably resulted" in their high diversification? This is not compelling nor even reasoned as a hypothesis.

Figs. 10-11, Typo in the caption: "holotype," not "holotypes"

Fig 12. Please scrub the figure for typos. For example Physeteridae or Physeteroidea, not the misspelled Physeteridea. Also ZMT 73 should not be italicized. Also, for the caption, why is consensus surrounded by quotes? That is not correct nor warranted -- and the meaning needs to be explained.

Lipotes and Parapontoporia do not fall in a traditional Inioidea concept of Iniidae+Pontoporiidae, so please correct the delimitation of Inioidea in the figure.

Table 1. "premaxillaries" is not an osteological element. Please correct to "premaxillae"


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

Input:
Title: A NEW KENTRIODONTID (CETACEA: ODONTOCETI) FROM THE EARLY TO MIDDLE MIOCENE OF THE WESTERN NORTH PACIFIC AND A REVISION OF KENTRIODONTID PHYLOGENY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The text is concise and rather well written, but would probably benefit from the review of a native English speaker. I made a series of suggestions to improve the style and clarity, but some more work may be needed. The background is properly presented, and the authors took account of a reasonable amount of previous papers, which are relevant and coherently cited. The work is finely organized, although I made a few suggestions for minor changes. Figures are of very good quality, showing a lot of details. I added some comments for additional labels and for the correction of some terms that are not correctly spelled or do not point to the right feature.
Experimental design: This research is original, dealing with the description of a new species based on a new fossil specimen. It falls definitely in the scope of PeerJ. The main goals of the work and the methods are finely described, and the analyses have been performed rigorously.
Validity of the findings: The description of this very nice new specimen is good, detailed, but includes a few anatomical interpretations that should probably be revised. The systematic and phylogenetic conclusions of the study are well supported. Please find below one concern about the attribution of the new species to the genus Kentriodon and some suggestions to improve the diagnosis and comparison. Some parts of the discussion should be slightly modified to better take account of the relationships between lipotids, inioids, and delphinoids (see annotated pdf).
Additional comments: I made a large number of comments and suggestions in the text and directly on the figures, but please find below several somewhat more important issues:

1. In the title you state 'middle Miocene' for the geological age of the specimen, but in figure 1 its lithostratigraphic interval seems to range between late Burdigalian and early Langhian. With such an interval it would probably be better to write 'late early to earliest middle Miocene'. I also made some comments in this issue in the pdf.

2. The only character defining here the genus Kentriodon (narrow external auditory meatus) is definitely difficult to code based on data from the literature, and has until now, to my knowledge, never been properly quantified. From my personal experience I do not remember having observed significant differences at this level between 'kentriodontids'. I understand the advantages of providing diagnoses based on the phylogenetic analysis (although it makes it difficult to tell if the observations were made by you or if you extracted the data from codings in previous matrices), but in this case, I believe that a differential diagnosis including all other kentriodontids should be provided, to better support the referral of the new species to the genus Kentriodon.

Furthermore, the external auditory meatus does not seem to be preserved in the holotype of the new species (for example I cannot see the postglenoid process of the squamosal), which would make its referral to the genus Kentriodon rather weak. This should be checked, before maybe revising the diagnoses.

I noted several other mismatches between the description, figures, diagnoses, and phylogenetic analysis (for example the dorsolateral margin of the ventral infraorbital foramen), that would necessitate some clarification (see pdf).

3- The only elements of comparison are found in the diagnosis, which is mostly based on the phylogenetic analysis (see comment above). I would suggest either adding comparison elements in the description part or adding a separate comparison section after the description, focusing on similarities and differences with other kentriodontids, especially members of the genus Kentriodon (but not only), at the level of the vertex, periotic, tympanic, malleus... This is a beautifully preserved specimen, providing interesting morphological features that should in my opinion be confronted to other early delphinidans. This would most likely help supporting the diagnosis of the new species and also provide an idea of intrageneric variation.

Even at a broader scale, differing from several previous analyses kentriodontids fall here as later branches compared to lipotids and inioids, and one would have expected elements of comparison with these two clades, which include a continuously improving fossil record (especially inioids). In other words, it may be worth showing how kentriodontids are more derived (towards delphinoids) than inioids. This is only a suggestion, but it would provide further support to your conclusions, I think.

I am looking forwards to seeing this interesting work being published.

O Lambert


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

Input:
Title: A NEW KENTRIODONTID (CETACEA: ODONTOCETI) FROM THE EARLY TO MIDDLE MIOCENE OF THE WESTERN NORTH PACIFIC AND A REVISION OF KENTRIODONTID PHYLOGENY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: see below
Experimental design: see below
Validity of the findings: see below
Additional comments: I would like to thank the authors for having made the effort of addressing many comments and suggestions by the reviewers. I think that the way they handled the reviews lead to a significant improvement of their interesting work.
Due to time constraints I wrote all my comments and suggestions in the .doc version of the text AND the .pdf (for figure captions and labels in figures).
- I mostly noted a number of very minor issues with style and a few typos, which should be easily corrected.
- Only a few somewhat more important problems remain, and most deal with anatomical interpretations (concerning the squamosal, exoccipital and basioccipital).
- The new figure 1 is very useful, but some changes are needed in the corresponding caption.
- Concerning the phylogeny, it seems that you missed a couple of recent papers for the comparison of the obtained topology (see suggestions in the text).
I am looking forwards to seeing this fine paper being published.


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: ADDICTION PEER RECOVERY COACH TRAINING PILOT: ASSESSMENT OF CONFIDENCE LEVELS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Overall, the study assesses the peer recovery coach training program for AIs. Well presented paper with clear contribution. writing is clear, professional English language used throughout. Intro & background show context. Literature is well referenced and relevant. The structure conforms to PeerJ standards.

It would help if the text is revised, e.g. the word pregnant women repeated twice in lines 62 and 63. Some terminologies might seem jargon to some readers, e.g. AI. If you mean  American Indian, introduce that once, then use the abbreviation. The Anishnaabeck Tribal Umbrella is another example.
Experimental design: Original and primary research within the scope of the journal. Research question well defined, relevant & meaningful. It is stated how the study fills an identified knowledge gap. Good investigation performed to an excellent technical & ethical standard. Methods described with sufficient detail & information to replicate.

However, basic demographic information is essential. I also suggest improving this section by adding a table or a diagram outlining the steps taken, the purpose, duration, materials used in each session, (i.e. study protocol in general). Indicate the sampling technique used and how participants were selected. Perhaps some information about the duration of the training, the structure of the sessions (etc.) would be useful.

I understand that a small sample size would result in a higher margin of error and hence unreliable. But I believe that the study is providing proof of concept rather than statistically significant findings that can be generalized.
Validity of the findings: Novelty is not extensively assessed. All underlying data have been provided; they are robust, statistically sound & controlled. Yet meaningful replication is not encouraged where rationale & benefit to literature is not clearly stated.

It would be great to collect some insight into why confidence was rated high in the pre-training assessment. Such qualitative data would be significant to provide more explanation of the WHY questions. For example, in line 198, it would be useful to know why there was little change in scores reported on the general aspects.
Additional comments: - In line 76, I'm interested to know some of these traditions (juts 2-3 examples) to show how such cultural aspects may have an influence.

- The different labels of the program (lines 56 and 57) were presented as if they are synonyms while there might be subtle differences in terms of what each is trying to emphasize. As a suggestion, C.E. Dickerson work on the logical and scientific foundation for system concepts, principles, and terminology (2008) can be a good approach.

- All techniques need to be cited, such as the Rhode Island Exam Study Guide.

- Study limitations and future directions should be recognized and acknowledged well.


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

Input:
Title: ADDICTION PEER RECOVERY COACH TRAINING PILOT: ASSESSMENT OF CONFIDENCE LEVELS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This manuscript meets the majority of the criteria for basic reporting.  However, it is a little confusing that the cultural and population focus on this work is not mentioned in the abstract and the first reference at end of first paragraph of introduction just says....for "AIs" ..   and it would be helpful to clarify the context for this analysis/study.
Experimental design: The authors are able to meet their objectives with their design of pre and post self assessments;  however, the authors do not include any discussion of limitations with this study.  For example, the training methods were very culturally specific - how would the results be applied more broadly?  Were there any additional factors that might impact the self-assessment process?
Validity of the findings: Despite the very small numbers,  the study helps to identify some important concepts and issues to be addressed as the addiction treatment field expands the peer workforce. For that reason,  it is worthy of consideration.  That training improves confidence levels is not novel, though some of the high pre -training confidence levels are.
 Description of the assessment tool is sufficient; conclusions are linked to the data provided.
Additional comments: While this is a very small study, the topic and insights regarding confidence levels can help contribute to the expanding work on training peers.  The abstract and initial section of introduction do not clearly make the link between the general study and the culturally specific aspects of the training. It would be interesting to know your assessment of how culture impacts training.

It would be also be helpful to add your assessment of any limitations of the 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: EVIDENCE OF PHENOTYPIC PLASTICITY ALONG AN ALTITUDINAL GRADIENT IN THE DUNG BEETLE ONTHOPHAGUS PROTEUS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript reports changes in morphological and color traits in an insect along an elevational cline. By investigating a conspicuous polymorphic species whose coloration was not previously studied in detail, plus the combination of a modern statistical approach, I believe that this manuscript has merit to be published on Peer J. Overall, it is well written, well structured, figures are relevant, high quality and well-described. I enjoyed reading it!
Experimental design: The study is well-designed, well-detailed and it nearly contains all the necessary information to allow its replication.
Validity of the findings: Conclusions are well-supported.
Additional comments: I just have very few minor suggestions, bellow:

•	There are some very recent and exciting literature on changes in insect body color according to elevation. For example, see De Souza et al. (2020) and references therein. This (and other) studies pretty match the findings reported to O. proteus, and I believe it is important to mention that the pattern reported to this beetle is quite common. This can allow authors to better connect their findings to the hole body of evidence on this topic.  I suggest authors to mention at least some of this literature. (de Souza, A. R., Mayorquin, A. Z., & Sarmiento, C. E. (2020). Paper wasps are darker at high elevation. Journal of Thermal Biology, 89, 102535.)

•	The methods are overall well-described, but I suggest authors to include a bit more information about samplings, to allow replication. For example, how many traps were used? How long the traps stayed in the field? at the time of taking pictures, were the insects alive or died? How did you keep them between collection and taking the pictures (ethanol, frozen, dried)?

•	Line 365, change “Onthophagus proteus”  to “O. proteus”

•	Line 331, I guess it is “pronota” instead of “pronata”


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: EVIDENCE OF PHENOTYPIC PLASTICITY ALONG AN ALTITUDINAL GRADIENT IN THE DUNG BEETLE ONTHOPHAGUS PROTEUS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: At it's core, this is a nice, simple study testing for associations between color, morphology, and elevation in an African dung beetle based on specimens collected in the field. Unfortunatley, this releatively straightforward premise is obscured by extremely wordy presentation in most sections of manuscript, with paragraphs dedicated to topics with only tangential relevance to the study at hand. For example, an entire paragraph (lines 84-91) is dedicated to plasticity without connecting it to any of the study questions, and this is not a study of plasticity regardless. At best plasticity would be brought up in the discussion while addressing the potential mechanisms underlying the observed patterns, but this topic is not touched on at all there. Another example is lines 403-424 in the discussion, a long paragraph dedicated to introducing horn dimorphism and sexual selection in dung beetles without direct connection to this study. Both of these paragraphs could be entirely dropped with little loss to the manuscript. These are just a few of many examples, and more are pointed out in the annotated manuscript attached.
Experimental design: The core experimental question and objective is nicely stated at the end of the introduction (lines 115-126). The methods themselves are nicely explained and illustrated using supplemental figures. I am overall very impressed by the quality of the photographic methods and their reporting, a subject I often find under-reported elsewhere. Only a few details are missing to ensure this manuscript would be entirely replicable. I would like to know 1) what kind of bait was used in the traps, 2) how the gray values were used for calibration, and 3) whether the color values were appropriately linearized (see Stevens et al. 2007, cited by the authors, for more details on the photographic aspects).
Validity of the findings: A large portion of the analysis comes from a Conditional inference tree (CIT) approach. I will admit, I am not familiar with this method having not encountered it before, and thus am not in position to evaluate whether it was conducted correctly. That said, I do question whether it is necessary for this study. The core results are entirely provided by the more traditional statistical tests already conducted in the manuscript. The CIT mostly confirms these results (horn morphology and color are associated with elevation). I do not see what is the added value of being able to predict altitudinal band of a particular specimen, particularly because these bands are an artificial grouping of a continuious variable (altitude). Prediction of phenotype based on altitude seems like a more useful goal because it is more in line with the primary hypothesis of the study (that morphology and color are associated with elevation), and these predictions can already be made by using the traditional statistical results.

The early discussion (327-362) focuses on trying to explain the CIT results which creates a much more confusing and complicated presentation of overall straightforward results. I acknowledge that substantial text is dedicated to explaining the broad utility and potential of CIT methods (208-244, 474-479), but how they fit into and contribute to this study is not at all clear. As such, I recommend dropping the CIT analysis unless the authors can clearly justify the added value of the CIT approach for addressing their hypotheses and ensure that the discussion remains clear and concise despite this. As is, the use of the CIT approach feels like novel statistics just for the sake of using them, without adding meaningfully to the results of this study, and indeed it makes the results harder to understand.

Additionally, non-significant statistical tests were conducted, but were left out of the manuscript (for example, the relationship between morphological traits other than horn-length and elevation). These need to be included at least in a supplemental table, but ideally in the main paper. Non-significant does not mean nothing is happening, just that you don't have support for something happening. The meaning of a non-significant p value is very different between p=0.9 and p=0.09, so these need to be provided.

Raw data is provided, and seems mostly sufficient, except that RGB_Ely_G and RGB_Ely_R values are missing for some specimens, without any clear explanation of why they are missing.
Additional comments: Overall, I think there is a nice, simple study at the core of this manuscript. Unfortuantely, that straightforward core (dark morphs are more common at higher elevations and they also have longer horns at longer elevations) is lost in an excess of extraneous information and needlessly complex statistical methods. I have left specific comments in the annotated manuscript which will hopefully help in focusing the manuscript and also help make other small improvements.


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: EVIDENCE OF PHENOTYPIC PLASTICITY ALONG AN ALTITUDINAL GRADIENT IN THE DUNG BEETLE ONTHOPHAGUS PROTEUS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: I got to review the previous version of this manuscript, and I appreciate how, as requested, substantial extraneous information has been removed greatly improving the overall quality and readability of the manuscript. That said, some information remains in the discussion that is unconnected to the study itself. Specifically, the paragraphs at lines 408-417 and 431-440 should be either dropped or their connection to the study's results should be made clear (either would be fine).

The raw data is now good, and the R script is well annotated.
Experimental design: The reporting of the experimental design and methods was solid in the original manuscript with only a few missing details. Those holes have now been filled in and the level of detail on the methods is now excellent.
Validity of the findings: My primary complaint regarding the previous version of this manuscript was the use of conditional inference trees (CIT) for much of the analysis and the heavy emphasis placed on this approach, which I believed introduced a great deal of complexity to the analysis while adding very little to the results.

The authors have written an extensive reply to my critique, and while I now better understand the potential merits of CITs (such as avoiding many common statistical assumptions), I find my skepticism of their use in this specific context remains (little of the response to reviewers addresses why to use CIT in this specific study). I believe I can more precisely articulate my issues now.

My main issue with the CIT analysis here is that the study's hypotheses are that morphology and color will change with elevation. The CIT, on the other hand examines how elevation changes with morphology and color, inverting the response and predictor variables. (I understand this data is correlative, but there is still directionality implied by the hypotheses that needs to be kept in mind.) CIT also seeks to make predictions rather than test a hypothesis (yes these are different, if related, goals). This obscures how the results connect to the hypothesis and greatly increases the complexity of an otherwise straightforward study, but it also raises greater problems.

The main problem arising from this backwards approach to these hypotheses is that by trying to predict elevation from traits, this approach only highlights the strongest elevation-trait relationships. Your hypotheses are not about which traits have the strongest relationship to elevation. They are about whether different traits are related to elevation, independently of each other. Just because one or a few traits are sufficient to predict altitude, it doesn't mean others don't also change. Multiple traits may be strongly correlated and thus add little predictive power for elevation, but if we care whether each trait changes with elevation (and based on this study's hypotheses we do care) then we won't learn about these other relationships from the CIT.

You argue that CITs avoid many of the assumptions of parametric methods a(although note that your other analyses are mostly non-parametric) and can incorporate complex interactions allowing them to make better predictions than other methods. None of this matters if it is testing the wrong hypothesis. Multiple regression to predict elevation from all the different traits would also have little value in this context. If you really wanted to incorporate all the different traits into a single analysis, you could use a multivariate approach to the response variables (such as PCA), but I think this study is fine as is testing the different traits independently and interpreting the set of those that change.

The CIT analysis could be dropped from this manuscript altogether and little of meaning would be lost (except, perhaps, evidence that some of the conclusions are supported by multiple statistical approaches in a convoluted to interpret way). At minimum, its role and priority in the discussion should be reduced and the conclusions should not focus on it (as is the conclusions are more than half about CITs, rather than the results of the study itself). You also state at line 360 that the full model (model C) was the best one, but so far as I can tell from the results, model B (just morphology) was actually better.

Alternatively you could rephrase your hypotheses in the introduction to be about which traits will be most useful for predicting what elevation beetles will be found at. I don't think this is a good idea.

As a final note, I think there remains some non-significant results that don't seem to be reported in the manuscript or supplemental materials (specifically those from the paragraph at line 290) and you should include the actual magnitude of difference through summary statistics or plots for some of your other significant results (lines 281-286).
Additional comments: I appreciate the effort the authors took to address my comments on the previous version of this manuscript. I find it generally improved (although see the annotated manuscript for more changes. Most are grammatical but a few additional details or connections to the hypotheses are requested). That said, I am still not convinced regarding the use of CITs in this specific study and the heavy emphasis placed on those results in the discussion (as opposed to the more traditional non-parametric tests already used). At minimum, their role in the conclusion and primacy in the discussion need to be reduced.


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: CHARACTERISTICS OF PLANKTONIC AND SEDIMENT BACTERIAL COMMUNITIES IN A HEAVILY POLLUTED URBAN RIVER
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The paper is clear, but the use of English is a bit poor.

The figures, tables and raw data are clear and well presented, with professional structure.

The background / context is poor.
Experimental design: Sampling design is not justified, neither the expected differences among sites.
The ecological differences between planktonic and benthic communities are not well defined, and consequently, the scientific question addressed does not have the appropriate conceptual framework. The importance of nutrient enrichment is poorly developed.
Validity of the findings: The results are valid and novel.
Additional comments: The paper is clear, but the use of English is a bit poor.

The figures, tables and raw data are clear and well presented, with professional structure.

The background / context is poor. There ecological differences between planktonic and benthic communities are not well defined, and consequently, the scientific question addressed does not have the appropriate conceptual framework.
The importance of nutrient enrichment is poorly developed. Sampling design is not justified, neither the expected differences among sites.


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: CHARACTERISTICS OF PLANKTONIC AND SEDIMENT BACTERIAL COMMUNITIES IN A HEAVILY POLLUTED URBAN RIVER
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: 1) The English language, grammar style and usage throughout the manuscript was good.

2) Sufficient background, with references, was provided in the Introduction section. I have the following suggestions:
p. 8 line 62-73: The transition between the first (surrounding terrestrial environment) and second (dams) part of the paragraph is not fluent. An extra sentence(s) is necessary to inform the reader how dams play a role in aquatic ecosystem.

3) Raw data for environmental parameters measured were not supplied. It will be helpful to add a table with the values of environmental parameters so the reader can trace back any patterns/variations to the raw data.

4) Some of the figures can be enhanced. For example, water and sediment samples were plotted on two separate RDA plots. It will be useful to make one RDA plot for all samples. It will be easier for the reader to see/determine which environmental parameters influence which samples.

5) The aim was to investigate “spatiotemporal” dynamics, however, only temporal trends were investigated and discussed. Distances between sampling points were not reported, so it is not clear whether spatial trends in community dynamics were possible/observed.
Experimental design: 1) It is not clear if community data were log/square root transformed prior to beta diversity calculations and RDA analysis.

2) It is not clear if environmental data standardized (z-score) prior to RDA analysis.

3) I recommend that the authors perform principal component analysis (PCA) to determine the most important gradients in environmental data.

4) It will be useful if the authors can perform additional statistical analysis on the alpha and beta diversity metrics. For example, ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis or Wilcoxon tests can be used on alpha diversity metrics to determine statistical differences between samples. For beta diversity, PERMANOVA (adonis/adonis2) can be used to determine if there is a significant difference in the centroid & dispersion of upstream and downstream communities. This can be supplemented with betadispersivity (betadisper) tests.

5) Were Spearman rank correlations performed on absolute or relative abundances? It is better to use absolute abundance for this purpose because relative abundance data suffers from apparent correlations. That being said, the paper by Quinn et al. 2017 (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16520-0) is very helpful to understand compositional data and correlations.

6) Did the authors perform weighted or unweighted Unifrac? Why did they use UPGMA clustering to visualize beta diversity? I believe visualization of beta diversity will be better with a PCoA or NMDS plot.

7) I commend the authors for applying DCA to determine which ordination analysis fits their data, very few papers report on this. However, the description of the process can be shortened (e.g. Redundancy analysis (RDA) was performed (Lepš and Šmilauer, 2003) based on the DCA results.)

8) I have the following suggestions for in-text corrections:
p. 10 line 107: to retain microbial cells from river water
p. 10 line 109: according to manufacturer instructions.
p. 10 line 110: using the primer set
p. 10 line 117: further processed as previously described (Caporaso et al., 2010). Chimeric reads were discarded using UCHIME (Edgar et al., 2011).
Validity of the findings: 1) Alpha diversity indices are presented in text. I recommend that indices are shown as box plots (with median values and interquartile ranges indicated on plots); statistical differences between groups can also be indicated on plots. Visualization of indices will make it easier to follow spatiotemporal trends.

2) Authors refer to “significance/significant” results in text (p. 12 line 155 & 167) but they fail to mention if statistical analyses were performed on alpha or beta diversity metrics in the Materials & Methods sections. If such analyses were performed it have to be clearly stated.

3) The study made conclusions only on the temporal aspect of bacterioplankton and sediment communities. The manuscript can be improved by not only looking at which environmental parameters influence communities, but also which anthropogenic activities impacted their diversity and distribution. This can be achieved by variation partitioning analysis or a similar type of analysis. It will also be good to infer relationships/interactions between OTUs within communities and/or between communities (e.g. water and sediment). This will provide a deeper insight into community dynamics but also strengthen the paper.
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: CHARACTERISTICS OF PLANKTONIC AND SEDIMENT BACTERIAL COMMUNITIES IN A HEAVILY POLLUTED URBAN RIVER
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: 1) The manuscript is written in English but technical grammar can be improved.
2) The authors updated the Introduction section to provide additional background/context with sufficient references.
3) The authors have uploaded the environmental data as previously requested. Figures are relevant to the content of the manuscript and of sufficient resolution. However, I do have comments regarding the following figures:

• In Figures 3-6 & 8 different sample names (SFe1-5, SAu1-5) are provided without clarification in the Materials & Methods section, whereas in the latter section only sampling sites (L1 – L5) are mentioned. This might be confusing for some readers and needs to be clarified.
• There’s an error in legend for Figure 3. The colouring for ‘Sediment (winter)’ should be blue and not green
• Figure 6: Instead of using latitude and longitude in the RDA, the authors can use distance between sampling points as a variable.

4) The results presented in the manuscript are relevant to the aim.
Experimental design: 1) The aim of this study was clearly stated in the Introduction section
2) The authors described the methods with much greater detail compared to the first manuscript. I want to point out the following aspects:
• Air temp for winter was warmer than for summer. Maybe the two temperatures were switched?
• The authors calculated statistics between sample groups (SFe1-5, SAu1-5) but failed to mention the groups in the Materials & Methods section. This can cause confusion with readers as the authors only mentioned the sites (L1 – L5).
• The authors provided some seasonal information for the sampling sites, additional information such as rainfall can be extremely helpful. I have noticed that nutrient levels during winter was higher than in summer that might be linked to for e.g. rainfall events and river hydraulics. Also, when nutrients are high it might select for specific taxa that can influence diversity.
• Although the authors stated in their rebuttal letter that species data were log transformed and environmental data were z-score standardized prior to beta diversity calculations, it is important to mention it in the text as well (which is currently missing).
• It is also not clear if the authors tested for multicollinearity (VIF) and significance (anova) of environmental parameters before running the final RDA model.
Validity of the findings: 1) Although the results are interesting and additional statistical analyses were performed, I believe that potential functionality and co-occurrence networks between water and sediment bacterial communities can provide some insight into how the two communities coincide and function. Such results will greatly improve the manuscript.
2) The Discussion and Conclusion sections will also benefit if the authors can discuss the significance of the results and not only compare their results to previous studies. For example, the authors can look into the following points:
• What do the results imply about the health and status of the river and for use by the community?
• Is it possible to infer long-term consequences on bacterial communities (water column and sediment) as well as river health if pollution continues?
• Can the results be used for any monitoring purposes?
• What are the limitations of this study and plans for future improvements?
Additional comments: No comment


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

Input:
Title: CHARACTERISTICS OF PLANKTONIC AND SEDIMENT BACTERIAL COMMUNITIES IN A HEAVILY POLLUTED URBAN RIVER
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: 1)  The manuscript is written in English and the technical grammar was improved.
2)  The authors updated the Introduction section as suggested to provide additional background/context with sufficient references.
3)  The authors amended the Figures which are relevant to the content of the manuscript and of sufficient resolution.
4)  The results presented in the manuscript are relevant to the aim.
Experimental design: 1)  The aim of this study was clearly stated in the Introduction section
2)  The authors described the methods with much greater detail compared to the second version. I want to point out the following aspects:

•  The method used to construct the co-occurrence network was not mentioned in the Materials & Methods section. Did the authors used correlation analysis, MENA etc. to construct the network? Also, what are the network properties?
•  Did the authors include Rainfall as an environmental parameter in correlation and RDA analyses? There was a big difference between summer and winter rainfall and one will expect it to significantly influence communities and taxa.
Validity of the findings: 1)  I appreciate the fact that the authors tried to include a co-occurrence network. However, the network does not add any value; it says nothing about the interactions between water and sediment species. It only states the percentage of OTUs shared between water and sediment samples which is more like a Venn diagram. I suggest that the authors reassess the construction and interpretation of co-occurrence networks and the value it can add to the study.
2)  As indicated by the authors, winter and summer rainfall differed markedly that may also explain the high abundance of some taxa and correlations between nutrients and taxa. The authors explained/discussed the influence of other (seasonal) environmental parameters on bacterial communities but failed to discuss the impact of rainfall, which is one of the most important seasonal parameters. As suggested previously, rainfall events impact river hydraulics and can even cause a “wash-out effect” of nutrients and microbial communities. Also, when nutrients are high (e.g. winter) it might select for specific taxa that can influence diversity.
3)  The Conclusion section is very short and can be elaborated to include more detail.
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: CHARACTERISTICS OF PLANKTONIC AND SEDIMENT BACTERIAL COMMUNITIES IN A HEAVILY POLLUTED URBAN RIVER
Review round: 4
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Basic reporting
1)	The manuscript is written in English and the technical grammar was improved.
2)	The authors updated the Introduction section as suggested to provide additional background/context with sufficient references.
3)	The authors amended the Figures which are relevant to the content of the manuscript and of sufficient resolution.
4)	The results presented in the manuscript are relevant to the aim.
Experimental design: Experimental design
1)	The aim of this study was clearly stated in the Introduction section
2)	The authors gave close attention to the reviewer’s suggestions and described the methods with much greater detail compared to the previous versions. I want to point out the following aspects:
•	MENA was used to construct the co-occurrence network. However, no details were provided for data preparation (did the authors use the entire dataset or a filtered dataset; was logarithm used or not; which similarity matrix was used for correlation analysis) and network properties. These details are important to readers for network reconstruction purposes.
Validity of the findings: Validity of the Findings
1)	I appreciate the fact that the authors tried to include a co-occurrence network. However, I find it difficult to believe that water bacterial communities had more than 90% of negative correlations. Obviously, there will be competition and predation among species, but the majority of interactions will not consist of these factors. It would make more sense to have such a high percentage of positive correlations. Although the current network displays positive/negative interactions, I suggest that the authors upload an additional metadata table into Cytoscape where OTUs are colored according to phylum level. Observing positive/negative correlations between phyla in water and sediment communities will add great value to the study.
2)	The Conclusion section is very short and can be elaborated to include more detail.
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: PUSHING UP OR PUSHING OUT—AN INITIAL INVESTIGATION INTO HORIZONTAL- VERSUS VERTICAL-FORCE TRAINING ON SWIMMING START PERFORMANCE: A PILOT STUDY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: With the exceptions of some minor points that I provide in the 'general comments' section, I thought that the authors did a really good job with their reporting of this study. The reporting is neat, clear and concise. Typically the language and style is appropriate and provides a professional feel to the manuscript.
Experimental design: In many respects this is a very well designed study. There appears to be a clear flow from the development of the research question to the design of the study. The one issue I do have though however is the reference to using 'plyometric' exercise in the intervention but then prescribing a non-plyometric exercise. It is my understanding that a plyometric exercise requires use of the stretch-shortening cycle and, unless I've missed something (and that's very possible) the exercises prescribed in this study's intervention do not.
Validity of the findings: I think that the authors do a good job with their findings. However, the point I raised in the previous section regarding plyometric exercise needs to be addressed to fully satisfy this part of my review.
Additional comments: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review your manuscript. Below I outline some specific points that I would like the authors to address and I refer to the line numbers throughout:

Line 40: please replace 'having' with 'have'

Line 45: please replace 'allows the' with 'enables' as the former suggests that permission is required

Line 51: consider replacing 'high levels of horizontal impulse' with something like 'large horizontal impulse'

Line 74: 'equivalence' could be a little misleading here... please consider replacing with a clearer word

Line 110: no doubt pedantic, but I don't think that 'comprising' is the right word here. Perhaps replace with something like '...an eight week training study...', removing reference to 'pilot' as this is more than that

Line 134-141: this is where I get a little confused. Of course, this might be due to poor understanding on my part, but I struggle to see how 'squat jump' can be plyometric given this requires use of the stretch-shortening cycle. If I'm wrong please revise this part for clarity (regarding 'squat jump' technique) otherwise delete reference to plyometric throughout and revise the manuscript accordingly

Line 179-180: I appreciate that the word count can quite often be tight, but I think it could be useful to outline these variables rather than referring the reader to another publication; perhaps present these (and brief definitions) in a table? This applies to line 201-204 too.

Line 209: what was the rationale for using paired sample t tests? Wouldn't it have been more statistically robust to use a repeated measures anova?

Line 218-19: please replace 'characteristics may correlated' with 'characteristics may be correlated'

Line 246-47: perhaps refer to the relevant figure/table here for clarify?

Line 265-66: I'm afraid that I have a problem with this wording. Perhaps largely semantics, but I think it might be more appropriate to replace these with 'horizontal' or 'vertical force orientated emphasis' because large vertical forces will still be required in the horizontal tasks

Line 280: did you really include 'plyometrics'? Please clarify and revise accordingly

Line 313: please replace 'allow for' with 'enable'; same on line 358


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: PUSHING UP OR PUSHING OUT—AN INITIAL INVESTIGATION INTO HORIZONTAL- VERSUS VERTICAL-FORCE TRAINING ON SWIMMING START PERFORMANCE: A PILOT STUDY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The article is well-written and uses clear language.

The introduction provides sufficient background to demonstrate how the work fits into the broader field of knowledge and references relevant prior literature.

The article structure is acceptable and conforms to PeerJ’s suggested format. The figure is relevant to the content of the article. The figure could potentially be improved by including pictures of all 8 exercises, but only if the authors and editors suspect PeerJ readers might be unfamiliar with the exercises.

In Table 1, was the drop jump in the HF group a drop *broad* jump, and the drop jump in the VF group a drop *vertical* jump?

For Table 3, it would be helpful to specify that the force-time characteristics were for a squat jump.

Raw data were made available, although it looks like some demographics variables (e.g. age) and the hip thrust and back squat strength data are missing. I suggest including a “codebook” with the raw data, perhaps in a separate tab, where the variable names are at least defined if not also briefly explained.

The submission is self-contained. However, it would be helpful if the equation from Brzycki 1993 for calculating estimated 1RM were provided so the reader doesn’t have to chase down that reference.

Please check the formatting for your references. For the article titles, be sure to adhere to PeerJ’s formatting instructions for title case vs. just first letter capitalized.
Experimental design: This original primary research is within the Aims and Scope of PeerJ, and the research appears to have been conducted ethically and rigorously.

The research question is well-defined, relevant, and meaningful, and the authors state how the research fills a gap. However, there is a secondary aim that appears somewhat by surprise in the statistical analysis section ("To gain some preliminary insight into how changes in the SJ force-time characteristics may correlated with the changes in swim start performance”). I suggest stating this as a secondary aim at the end of the introduction (and fixing the typo therein). Alternatively, consider removing all aspects of this analysis from the manuscript if it does not rise to the level of importance to be considered a secondary aim.

The methods were generally described with good detail, although there were several areas for improvement:

1. The description of the participants in lines 112 and 123 are duplicitous. I recommend removing the participant information from the experimental design section (line 112).

2. The methods would be more cohesive if written chronologically (e.g., moving lines 116-120 to later in the Methods section).

3. In the Participant section, were there any exclusion criteria? Also, what was the participants’ previous experience with hip thrusts and back squats?

4. Please provide rest times between sets in the training intervention (if they were prescribed) (Table 1) as well as the repetition range used in the strength testing that was then input to estimate 1RMs (lines 155-157).

5. For the SJs (lines 174-175) and swim starts (line 190), why did you take the best trials and not the average of the three trials?

6. In lines 179 and 203, it would be helpful to at least know how many SJ and block performance variables were assessed (if not indicating what the variables were, perhaps in a table). That way when the reader gets to the results, they can contextualize the 7 comparisons for which there were moderate effect sizes.
Validity of the findings: The data appear robust. However, considering these are national level athletes, I wonder about the unimpressive squat jump performances, ranging from only 18.6 cm to 43.8 cm. I recognize it’s a non-countermovement jump and these are swimmers (not necessarily the best athletes on dry land), but the values still seem low.

In terms of the statistical analysis, I question the use of inferential statistics for a pilot study with such a small sample size. Lack of statistically significant findings is not surprising for such a small sample. In general, in the results and discussion, I recommend placing greater emphasis on the effect sizes rather than the lack of statistical significance.

Also in terms of the statistics, if you choose to use null hypothesis significance testing with an a priori significance level, it’s best not to interpret p-values close to 0.05 as “trends” towards significance (line 243).

At points, the discussion and conclusion get away from the focus of the study and explore questions that the study did not directly address. This is especially true of lines 360-363. While the recommendations are logical, they’re not the appropriate conclusion based on the findings of the present study.
Additional comments: In the abstract, please provide the standard deviations for the swim volumes for the two groups (line 16). Also indicate the exercises that strength was tested in (line 20).

In line 101, it says “four PAP studies,” but only two of the studies discussed above were of PAP.

In all instances where 1RM strength is mentioned, please edit to "predicted 1RM strength" since 1RM was not actually tested (e.g., line 238).

In the Results (line 243), a percentage improvement in predicted 1RM strength might be a more valid comparison than raw scores, given that most people tend to hip thrust more than they squat (so we would expect a larger raw improvement). For the discussion, is it possible participants improved in the hip thrust more than the squat because they had less previous experience with the hip thrust?

In the results, please provide more detail about the moderate effect sizes (lines 246-247). How many of the 7 were SJ variables, and how many were block performance variables? How many favored the HF group and the VF group? Some of this information is contained in the discussion (lines 274-275) and would be better served in the results. The discussion would be a good place to discuss the practical significance of the magnitude of the observed changes in these metrics.

Line 279: remove “relatively”

Lines 278-286: Were there any differences between participants across the studies cited that could explain why some of them showed improvements in 6-9 week interventions while other studies didn’t?

Lines 332-336: This introduction of “individual responses to different training programs” seems to come out of left field.


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: PUSHING UP OR PUSHING OUT—AN INITIAL INVESTIGATION INTO HORIZONTAL- VERSUS VERTICAL-FORCE TRAINING ON SWIMMING START PERFORMANCE: A PILOT STUDY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No further comments.
Experimental design: No further comments.
Validity of the findings: No further comments.
Additional comments: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review the revised version of your manuscript. And thank you for your patience.
I think that you've done a excellent job with the revisions so thank you for making my job so much easier. I'm happy with the revised version and have no more feedback to provide.


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: PUSHING UP OR PUSHING OUT—AN INITIAL INVESTIGATION INTO HORIZONTAL- VERSUS VERTICAL-FORCE TRAINING ON SWIMMING START PERFORMANCE: A PILOT STUDY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors did a nice job addressing my feedback here. I noted a few instances of typos and suggested revisions to punctuation. Please see highlights/track changes in attached PDF.
Experimental design: The authors did a nice job addressing my feedback here; I have no further comments.
Validity of the findings: The authors did a nice job addressing the majority of my feedback here. However, while the authors did amend line 254, the language surrounding a "trend" for a difference in strength gains is still problematic. If there was no statistically significant difference, that should simply be stated, while also indicating the groups' scores and effect size of the difference.
Additional comments: The authors have done a nice job with their revisions. Kudos for your diligence. Please see highlights/track changes in attached PDF for my suggested revisions for typos and punctuation.


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: SPATIAL TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF COVID-19 RISK DURING THE EARLY PHASE OF THE PANDEMIC IN MALAWI
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Abstract:

"Future or present strategies to avert
the spread of COVID-19 should target major cities by limiting international exposure."

You do not explicitly study the effect of international exposure, so this sentence
does not belong in the abstract.

Introduction and references:

Line 316: In the reference for "(WHO, 2020)", on page 15, the content of the
URL following the ? is unnecessary:
"https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200810-covid-19-sitrep-203.pdf"
is sufficient.

Line 33-34: "Since its onset, COVID-19 has been one of the greatest disease
pandemics of all times."

This may be true, but there is no reference supporting it. How do the
incidence and prevalence compare with polio, influenza, and HIV/AIDS? I would
like to see a short comparison with two other pandemics at their peaks.
This should demonstrate that COVID-19 is similar, and emphasise its
seriousness.

I would also (optionally) change this sentence to:
"Since its onset, COVID-19 has become one of the greatest pandemics of modern
times."

Line 34: The statement:
"From its discovery in December in China, 19 718 030 people world over..."

has several problems, most of which are the fault of the WHO and not the
authors. For example, the statistic is implausibly precise. The uncertainties in
monitoring and surveillance of COVID-19 are very high: it is meaningless to
quote statistics to seven decimal places, unless the uncertainties in the
measurement process are less than one part in ten million. This is certainly
not the case with the current pandemic.

This figure is also changing daily. It was already September when I received
this paper for review, and will be October -- at the earliest -- when this
paper is published. Rather than emphasising the relevance of the paper, I feel
this sentence ties it to a specific time, and may cause it to age poorly.
However, the author's methodology is fundamentally sound, and I believe it is
a valuable contribution.

My recommendation is simply to delete this sentence, and provide more detail
on historical context elsewhere.

Lines 43-44: "Understanding disease space and time dynamics is important for
the epidemiologists as with space distribution, the hot spot areas are marked
for intervention."

I agree. A reference to John Snow's 1854 study of a cholera outbreak in London
would help to emphasise the importance of spatio-temporal studies to our
understanding of disease, and to suggest policy interventions. (John Snow, On
the Mode of Communication of Cholera, 1855. Available from the UCLA Fielding
School of Public Health here: http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/snowbook.html)

This is an optional edit but I think it would add helpful historical context.

The rest of the introduction is good.
Experimental design: Statistical analysis:

Overall, this section and the design are well-described. I would like to
commend the authors for providing both their original data and the R code used
for the analysis.

Lines 94-96:
"The potential covariates would be selected for further multiple variable modelling if
their p-values were less than 0.20."

Why 0.20? Please explain why you think this was an appropriate threshold.
(Around one or two paragraphs.)
Validity of the findings: Figures:

Figures 1-3:

The colour scheme for all figures is unclear, and the resolution is somewhat
low. Please add point markers to these plots and legends.

The key for figure 3 is unclear. Are the labels on the right in roughly the
same order as the lines on the left, from top to bottom? I can't tell which
curve is which. This would be solved by adding distinct point markers to the
plot and legend.

Figure 4 looks great. In the text, you mention the possible effect of
political rallies during the 2020 presidential election. Would it be possible
for you to add markers to the maps in figure 4 that show when and where the largest political rallies happened during this period?

Optional improvements to all figures:

Ideally, I would like to be able to reproduce these figures using the data in the
supplemental material, and an R or Python program. Can this be incorporated in
your supplemental material?

The resolution of several figures is quite low. Is it possible for you to
upload vectorised SVG, postscript, or PDF versions, either in the main paper
or in the supplemental material?

Supplemental material and R code:

Dependencies:

The packages INLA, spdep, ggplot2, and BayesX are not installed by default,
but are available in CRAN. To install these on Debian GNU/Linux, I did the
following:

apt install r-cran-surveillance r-cran-spdata r-cran-spdep r-cran-ggplot2

I also had to download and install the BayesX library by starting an R prompt
and entering:

> install.packages("BayesX")

A short README.txt containing the above commands would be very helpful.

Line 5: The file "malawi.bnd" was not included the supplemental material, and
I was unable to find it online. Without this file, I was unable to execute the
notebook.

Line 10: When downloaded, the file "covid19data.csv" will not be located at
"C:/p/covid19data.csv". I found that a simple fix was to change this to a
relative path:

d<-read.csv("./covid19data.csv")

If you can confirm that this also works on your machine I think this should be
changed.
Additional comments: General comments and summary:

I enjoyed reading this report on spatio-temporal dynamics of COVID-19 risk in
Malawi. I was pleased to find it to be higher quality than many similar papers
on COVID-19 that have been forwarded to me, with a well-described methods
section, and basically sound conclusions. I have recommended several minor
revisions to improve the context and reproducibility of the work before it can
be accepted for publication.

I am especially impressed by the effort the authors have put into ensuring
their work is reproducible, and was able to test their R code on my
machine. After the last issue relating to the provided files is resolved, I
will be very happy with the quality of the supplemental material.

There are some sentences in the abstract and introduction, mainly regarding
historical context, that I think should be rephrased. Importantly, there is
one methodological choice -- setting significance threshold P=0.20 -- that
needs better explanation.

I have also suggested several improvements to all figures and the supplemental
material.


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: SPATIAL TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF COVID-19 RISK DURING THE EARLY PHASE OF THE PANDEMIC IN MALAWI
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This study aims to estimate/predict spatiotemporal changes in COVID-19 infected risk in Malawi. I must be honest that the manuscript is far from well-written and has low-quality figures.
Experimental design: Because there are many published works with a similar topic worldwide, this study's originality is limited. In my opinion, research questions were not attractive. If the author could compare different risk prediction methods or find the main factors affecting the risk distribution, the manuscript will be much more meaningful. The p-value should not be used because it can be misleading. Please check "Psychology journal bans P values" [doi:10.1038/519009f] and newer related publications.
Validity of the findings: The main result is "the spatial distribution of COVID-19 showed major cities being at greater risk than rural areas ..." and recommend that "... avert the spread of COVID-19 should target major cities by limiting international exposure" are not new things. Because there is no model validation in this study, how the prediction could be applied for a future event is still a question.
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: SPATIAL TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF COVID-19 RISK DURING THE EARLY PHASE OF THE PANDEMIC IN MALAWI
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: Dear authors,

Thanks for the opportunity to review your manuscript.

Although the COVID pandemic would require a global effort to promote high quality investigations so that to improve our understanding and design adequate control strategies, I consider you work as deficient in the writing, data/information and approach.
At first, English needs to be improved throughout the ms. There are sentences really hard to follow and the language does not appear to follow scientific terminologies.

Secondly, you are using a very short period of time, 6 weeks, to perform spatial temporal analysis. However, in the analysis you omit almost three months of data since the epidemic started (or first index case) on April 2nd. The first stage of the epidemic is crucial for the understanding of the overall results, particularly the early spread between districts. Not knowing such info, it is really hard to hypothesized about the spread of the virus in Malawi.

Third, you reported very limited covariates in your analysis (pop. size, density and water data). Moreover, none of them showed association to COVID cases, So, in addition to not justify their selection and exclusion of other putative risk factors that may be available, the results are not relevant at all.

Overall, I congratulate the approach used but the very limited data and results are insufficient to consider this work as a publication in this journal.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: no comment


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

Input:
Title: SPATIAL TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF COVID-19 RISK DURING THE EARLY PHASE OF THE PANDEMIC IN MALAWI
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: Thank you for including the map of Malawi. I still required some changes to the attached R code to get it to run, and needed to install R-INLA from here (https://www.r-inla.org/download-install). I could reproduce figures 1 and 3 but not figures 2 or 4.
Validity of the findings: I was very surprised by the finding of negative association of incidence with poverty and population density. Have the authors ruled out differences in monitoring/surveillance, or a correlation between wealth and age? I can imagine that lower access to healthcare would result in less effective monitoring: if so, we might not be able to trust data from poorer regions. I can also imagine that older people are generally wealthier as they have had a longer time to accumulate savings: if so, association with wealth might simply be a proxy for association with age.

To address this, I think a few sentences addressing the above points are necessary.
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: SPATIAL TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF COVID-19 RISK DURING THE EARLY PHASE OF THE PANDEMIC IN MALAWI
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript is improved, but my concern about the study's originality still remains.
Experimental design: (1) The authors compare their work with that of Schrödle and Held (2010), which does not make sense for me. While Schrödle and Held mainly focused on the mathematical aspect of how INLA can be applied for spatiotemporal disease mapping, this manuscript is a case study of INLA's application. Therefore, I would like to see more about the model validation or what this case study can contribute to.

(2) In my opinion, this work is not attractive if the authors only focus on investigating the distribution of COVID-19 in both space and time in Malawi. By this limitation, the manuscript should be submitted to a regional journal. I repeat my comment from the first review round again. If the author could compare different risk prediction methods or find the main factors affecting the risk distribution, the manuscript will be much more meaningful. Some results of driven factors are shown in the revised manuscript. Why not do a deeper analysis (using additional statistic methods) and discuss in more detail those factors? We need a solid analysis that can help to identify the main driven factors.

(3) Banning P-value's usage is a wide discussion in the scientific community. It is naive if you argue this point by referring to an opinion on Figshare.
Validity of the findings: Minor points:
- Figures 2 and 4: there are no legends. The distance between maps is too wide.
- Figure 3: I cannot read the text inside the plot. Why not increase the height of the plot?
- Some typos: "COVI-19" in lines 50 and 260.
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: SPATIAL TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF COVID-19 RISK DURING THE EARLY PHASE OF THE PANDEMIC IN MALAWI
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: Thanks again for the opportunity to review this ms. I can see authors did an effort to improve English grammar and update methods and data, however, I still think the paper needs major revisions.

I do not think the keywords are in line with the work. I would suggest spatial epidemiology, spatial risk, COVID spread, spatiotemporal modeling, etc. I do not think "Inseparable, separable" would be useful keywords.

Please, make an attempt to use colors for the spatial figures. Maybe consider green (low risk), yellow (medium risk) and red (high risk) for reporting. Black and white make really difficult to capture risk.

L 14 - what is the epidemiological spatial unit? District, province, region, commune, etc? Please mention it.

L 21 -  "Proportion of elderly people was positively associated with COVID-19 risk than what???? - remember in epidemiology you compare populations on risk. Please, be specific about this throughout the ms.

L 23  - (CI = -0.136 ; -0.065). - Maybe using ; would be better than -.

L 24 - "to avert" - maybe "to limit".

L 40-42: What is the meaning of that sentence? Is that SARS-CoV-2 has the highest average R0? is more transmissible? Please, state.

L 43 - is the distribution or the spread driven by?

L 48 - i do not see a connection between density and super-spreading. The latter is an individual pattern, well recognized in the COVID pandemic, nothing to do with the density.
Experimental design: Overall, nothing is mentioned in the paper about non-pharmaceutical interventions such as movement restrictions at local or national scales (i.e., lockdowns). How about their role in limiting the spread in the country? Is that accounted for?  Please, describe.
Validity of the findings: Little is mention about the relative risk reported results. A risk ratio (RR), also called relative risk, compares the risk of a health event (here COVID incidence) among one group with the risk among another group. A RR of 1.0 indicates identical risk among the two groups. A risk ratio greater than 1.0 indicates an increased risk for the group in the numerator, usually the exposed group.RR < 1.0 indicates a decreased risk for the exposed group, indicating that perhaps exposure actually protects against COVID occurrence. Based on Fig. 3, your RR goes from 0 to ~0.003. This is very strange reporting RR and I would suggest you need to discuss this with an epidemiologist to interpret such results properly.
Additional comments: Although authors did an attempt to update data and improve English in many ways, I believe you need to discuss results with an epidemiologist to properly interpret results and some key concepts.


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: SPATIAL TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF COVID-19 RISK DURING THE EARLY PHASE OF THE PANDEMIC IN MALAWI
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Looks fine
Experimental design: After installing the relevant dependencies the R code produced several graphs, but returned some errors.

I noticed some typos in the R code again: "formula33" in code.R should be "formula32" I think. Also "formula44" should be "formula42". After these corrections were made, i got the error:

Error in plot.new() : figure margins too large
Calls: drawmap -> plot -> plot.default -> plot.new
Execution halted

Also, I am concerned that the authors have not conducted a sensitivity analysis of their fitting parameters. This would give a clearer picture of how robust the findings are, and also serve to validate the model. I can suggest bootstrapping confidence intervals, which I know to be possible in R, but other methods are possible.
Validity of the findings: Looks good, but issues with the supplemental code and parameter sensitivity/model validation should be addressed.
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: SPATIAL TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF COVID-19 RISK DURING THE EARLY PHASE OF THE PANDEMIC IN MALAWI
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Because this manuscript is a case study that applies an available model for investigating the distribution of COVID-19, its originality is limited. By this limitation, the manuscript should be submitted to a regional journal. Although the authors try to improve some parts of the manuscript, the figure quality is still low, and the findings are not attractive.
Experimental design: No comment.
Validity of the findings: No comment.
Additional comments: No additional comments


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

Input:
Title: LOW COMPOSITIONS OF HUMAN TOLL-LIKE RECEPTOR 7/8-STIMULATING RNA MOTIFS IN THE MERS-COV, SARS-COV AND SARS-COV-2 GENOMES IMPLY A SUBSTANTIAL ABILITY TO EVADE HUMAN INNATE IMMUNITY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: English language should be improved. There are some grammatical errors and typos in this manuscript. The authors should re-check and revise carefully.

Literature review is weak. It is necessary to provide more related references for genomic analysis.

Research question is not much novelty. It is like a narrow study on SAR-COV since there are a lot of works that had been done on general viruses. The users/readers could even use the general methods for this analysis.
Experimental design: Source codes should be released for replicating the methods and results.

The authors reported the measurement metrics i.e. sensitivity, specificity, or accuracy, but I did not see any mention in methodology.

Cross-validation testing is well-known and has been used in previous genomics-based studies such as PMID: 28643394, PMID: 31277574, and PMID: 31921391. Therefore, it is necessary to refer to more works in this description.
Validity of the findings: The performance results look perfect (sensitivity, specificity, accuracy of 100%). It is a point that needs to be discussed.

The authors did not compare the performance results among different methods.

It is important to compare the performance results with the previously published works in this field.
Additional comments: No comment.


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

Input:
Title: LOW COMPOSITIONS OF HUMAN TOLL-LIKE RECEPTOR 7/8-STIMULATING RNA MOTIFS IN THE MERS-COV, SARS-COV AND SARS-COV-2 GENOMES IMPLY A SUBSTANTIAL ABILITY TO EVADE HUMAN INNATE IMMUNITY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This article is of very good help for immunology experts who were working on wet lab side. Bioinformatic analysis most of the times opens the prerequisites of where to start. We know like Covid-19 is on one hand acute at present and there fore agressive immune reactions from systemic immunity were creating cytokine storm. This cytokine storm is becoming huge problem.
In all these persuits insilico analysis is of significant help for even vaccine development work flow.
Experimental design: experimental design is pretty straight forward but might have been compared with other existing methodology as well.
Validity of the findings: Findings were of significant importantance and were valid.
Additional comments: Yes your article and analysis is very straight forward, I appreciate it. But might have validated data with more than one method.


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: LOW COMPOSITIONS OF HUMAN TOLL-LIKE RECEPTOR 7/8-STIMULATING RNA MOTIFS IN THE MERS-COV, SARS-COV AND SARS-COV-2 GENOMES IMPLY A SUBSTANTIAL ABILITY TO EVADE HUMAN INNATE IMMUNITY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: My previous comments have been addressed satisfactorily.


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: LOW COMPOSITIONS OF HUMAN TOLL-LIKE RECEPTOR 7/8-STIMULATING RNA MOTIFS IN THE MERS-COV, SARS-COV AND SARS-COV-2 GENOMES IMPLY A SUBSTANTIAL ABILITY TO EVADE HUMAN INNATE IMMUNITY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Authors addressed the important aspect of predicting the potential simulator affect of viral genomes on human toll like receptors 7/8. they compared such stimulatory affects among various pathogenic SARS viruses but not with focus on mechanistic variations among them.
host innate immunity mostly serves as static entity and based on this constant variable, comparing and computing the method to validate stimulatory and evasion affects on innate immune response is however appreciated.
Experimental design: The basic methodology looks good but computing on raw sequences holds less promising as authors ignored mechanistic variables.
Validity of the findings: Validity of findings with in the methods followed is fine, that helps people use the approach given by authors. But added more variables would have been better.
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: CONTACT TOXICITY OF THREE INSECTICIDES FOR USE IN TIER I PESTICIDE RISK ASSESSMENTS WITH MEGACHILE ROTUNDATA (HYMENOPTERA: MEGACHILIDAE)
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: See General comments for the author
Experimental design: See General comments for the author
Validity of the findings: See General comments for the author
Additional comments: The manuscript reports LD50 results for three insecticides on the alfalfa leafcutting bee, Megachile rotundata. The manuscript provides results of interest to better understand risks to that species as well as other solitary bee species. The paper is generally well written and methodologically sound.

Comments:
L1-2. The title is trying to capture something the paper is not. These aren’t preliminary tests nor are they potential insecticides. The authors are simply reporting LD50 values for three insecticides––and that’s good enough! Issues of methods development and assessment and benchmark data for other insecticides can be discussed in the text. It does not need to be captured in the title.
L2. Should it be “(Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)” instead?
L18. Insert “Therefore,” before “we…”
L30-31. Change “Vaugh” to “Vaughn”.
L44. Consider not using the abbreviation “ALB”. Use “M. rotundata” or “alfalfa leafcutting bee” instead.
L48. Change to “Regulatory pesticide risk assessment for bees is a…”
L53. The authors state, “…we must develop and use standardized methods that are unique to this species.” Why? Provide a rationale for this, especially given that the authors derive a LD50 for permethrin of 50 ng/bee, which is nearly very similar to the LD50 of 57 ng/bee derived by Piccolomini et al. (2018) using very different methods and statistical analyses. Also, Piccolomini et al. (2018) essentially used the same EPA SOP as that for honey bees. So, again, what is the rationale for the authors’ statement?
L70. Change “suggests” to “suggest”.
L100. Provide more information on the growth chamber (e.g., brand, model, dimensions, location of manufacturer).
L113-127. This section could be improved with a clearer description of several aspects of the methods. It is unclear how many bees were used per dose per experiment. Also, list the 5 doses, not just the range between the lowest and highest. The authors state, “The bees were treated in a randomized complete block design, where blocks were separated across days.” What do the blocks represent? All doses of a single insecticide? A group of bees treated with one dose of an insecticide? How many experimental replications were conducted for each insecticide at each dose?
L119. What was the ppm of the CO2 used?
L143. Change “vale” to “value”.
L147. Change “is” to “are”.
L171. Change “appeared” to “seemed”.
L190-191. There needs to be a “because” after this statement. Provide an explanation.
L204. “rotundata” needs to be italicized.
L221. How is the hazard quotient dimensionless when the units do not cancel?
L245. Change “honeybees” to “honey bees”.
L253-262. Can this section be deleted? What does it add that hasn’t already been stated?
Discussion. The authors might strengthen their arguments by discussing complementary information from Piccolomini et al. (2018) (e.g., very similar LD50 values for permethrin and discussion of Apis mellifera in fourth and last paragraph in their discussion section). Also, another paper addresses the authors’ comments about tier 1 vs. tier 3 risk assessment using M. rotundata. See Piccolomini et al. 2018. The effects of an ultra-low-volume application of etofenprox for mosquito management on Megachile rotundata (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) larvae and adults in an agricultural setting. Journal of Economic Entomology. 111:33-38.
Figure 2. A mean and the two error bars for the control for imidacloprid indicate greater than 20% mortality. A standard practice in insect toxicology (and broader than insect toxicology) is to discard trials in which 20% or more control individuals die (Yu, S.J. 2008. The toxicology and biochemistry of insecticides. CRC Press Taylor Francis Group, Boca Raton, FL, USA).
Table 4. Hazard quotients are not dimensionless in this case.


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: CONTACT TOXICITY OF THREE INSECTICIDES FOR USE IN TIER I PESTICIDE RISK ASSESSMENTS WITH MEGACHILE ROTUNDATA (HYMENOPTERA: MEGACHILIDAE)
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: However, the manuscript is principally well referenced, but to my opinion the authors omitted to cite a key paper recently published by Hayward et al. (2019; Nature Ecology & Evolution 3, 1521-24), and showing that M. rotundata is up to 2,500-fold more sensitive to certain insecticides (e.g. thiacloprid) commonly considered selective and honey bee safe.
Experimental design: The paper is generally well-written, and the methods described in enough detail. However, it would be beneficial to mention under M&M the number of replicates tested and how often the bioassays were repeated.
Validity of the findings: I have a fundamental problem with the conclusion drawn by the authors. Please refer to the general comments for the author
Additional comments: Ansell et al. investigated the contact toxicity of three different insecticides with different modes of action against alfalfa leafcutter bee, Megachile rotundata, an important managed pollinator for alfalfa seed production. In contrast to honey bees it is a solitary bee species not forming large colonies. All three insecticides – dimethoate, permethrin and thiamethoxam – were highly toxic as previously shown for other bee pollinators. The employed method was adapted from current honey bee tier I risk assessment according to OECD. The paper is generally well-written, and the methods described in enough detail. However, it would be beneficial to mention under M&M the number of replicates tested and how often the bioassays were repeated. However, the manuscript is principally well referenced, but to my opinion the authors omitted to cite a key paper recently published by Hayward et al. (2019; Nature Ecology & Evolution 3, 1521-24), and showing that M. rotundata is up to 2,500-fold more sensitive to certain insecticides (e.g. thiacloprid) commonly considered selective and honey bee safe.

Therefore, I have a major concern and a fundamental problem regarding the conclusion drawn by the authors: “ Finally, our results suggest that it may not be necessary to develop topical tier I pesticide risk assessment using ALB, as the…”. That said, I think the authors´ conclusion is only correct considering the three toxic insecticides they tested, but to generally conclude tier I pesticide risk assessment with solitary bees may not be necessary seem not tenable, at least in the light of the current scientific knowledge. The authors should consider refining their conclusions or at least discussing their findings in the light of the most recent literature, almost suggesting the opposite in terms of solitary bee tier I pesticide risk assessment.