First Record of Beauveria varroae, Cordyceps blackwelliae, and Purpureocillium lavendulum from Greece and Their Pathogenicity against Thaumetopoea pityocampa
, Panagiotis A. Eliopoulos 4 and Konstantinos Poulas 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Some considerations :
1- Identification of fungal strains: the authors state that the isolated strains were sub-cultivated several times and monosporic cultures were obtained, however, in the photographs a single colony is not observed in the Petri dish, instead it can be observed that multiple spores have dispersed on the culture medium, originating numerous colonies. On the other hand I consider that microphotographs and a brief description of cultural features of the three isolated species would be very useful because they are locally species that have never been illustrated for that area (ej shape and size of phialides, conidia).
2- The first record of the species is for an area of ​​Achaia in Greece, since they are cosmopolitan species.
3- The pathogenicity was tested in larvae of Thaumetopoea pityocampa (Lepidoptera, Notodontidae). It would be necessary to add some consideration to the importance of this pathogen in the study area to justify the use of this species as a study target.
M&M, I suggest detailing the reason for the use of Sitophilus zeamais (Coleoptera: Curculionidae and Tribolium confusum (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) as baits.
Other observations:
Line 233 what do the authors refer to with the subtitle Evolution of different?
Line 235 Fusarium solani appears and reader are sent to table 3? What does this species mean in all the work, is it a typing error?
Line 241 says Table 3, refers to Table 1?
Check in the species that when the genus is abbreviated, the specific epithet begins with a lowercase letter (line 56, 158 etc. B. varroae not B. Varroae
line 59, Puspureocillium lavendulum the authority of the species is missing (Perdomo, Gené, Cano & Guarro)
Bibliography, check that after the name of an abbreviated genus the epithet of the species begins with a lowercase letter.
It is necessary to highlight in bold some years in the citations.
In the citations 59 to 63 what is the reason that the authors are in capital letters?
Author Response
Identification of fungal strains: the authors state that the isolated strains were sub-cultivated several times and monosporic cultures were obtained, however, in the photographs a single colony is not observed in the Petri dish, instead it can be observed that multiple spores have dispersed on the culture medium, originating numerous colonies.
All Petri dishes contained cultures of only one EPF isolate.
On the other hand I consider that microphotographs and a brief description of cultural features of the three isolated species would be very useful because they are locally species that have never been illustrated for that area (ej shape and size of phialides, conidia).
Τhe morphological characteristics of our fungal isolates did not differ from the description of the morphology of these EPF species in the literature. For this reason we used the appropriate references (lines 178-181).
The first record of the species is for an area of ​​Achaia in Greece, since they are cosmopolitan species.
All species found during the present study are first records for Greece. Some changes have been made in the title and the text to make this clear.
The pathogenicity was tested in larvae of Thaumetopoea pityocampa (Lepidoptera, Notodontidae). It would be necessary to add some consideration to the importance of this pathogen in the study area to justify the use of this species as a study target.
A relevant paragraph has been added in the Introduction with two references (lines 68-74)
M&M, I suggest detailing the reason for the use of Sitophilus zeamais (Coleoptera: Curculionidae and Tribolium confusum (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) as baits.
Thank you for this comment. We add an explanatory paragraph in M&M (lines 82-87)
Line 233 what do the authors refer to with the subtitle Evolution of different?
The title has been corrected (line 224)
Line 235 Fusarium solani appears and reader are sent to table 3? What does this species mean in all the work, is it a typing error?
Line 241 says Table 3, refers to Table 1?
Check in the species that when the genus is abbreviated, the specific epithet begins with a lowercase letter (line 56, 158 etc. B. varroae not B. Varroae
Bibliography, check that after the name of an abbreviated genus the epithet of the species begins with a lowercase letter.
It is necessary to highlight in bold some years in the citations.
In the citations 59 to 63 what is the reason that the authors are in capital letters?
We are sorry for these typing errors. They have been corrected.
line 59, Puspureocillium lavendulum the authority of the species is missing (Perdomo, Gené, Cano & Guarro)
We added authority in the first mention of this species in the text (line 17)
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
this is a manuscript where a reader can realice the intense campaign of work you did and the effort behind. Besides that, it is interesting to know the distribution of the different species and their pathogenic degee too. However, this manuscript could be much more enhanced to ease the lecture. There are sections that should be improved and the order matters, I recommend you follow a cronological order and explain deeper the procedures done due to sometimes it is hard to follow. It seems that this manuscript was not reviewed carefully, so I decided to notice the main concerns to review it again when methodology and results are clearer. I do not know if it is a mistake of format by your side or by the system but there are mistakes such as the use of capital letters to name a specie.
In addition, I realice that you cited many times your collegue and co-author Mantzoukas, however I am not sure he will agree with the sentences written. Please review this and the references used, although the majority are well written (no mistakes in the text) and are appropiate to support the context of the manuscript.
Looking forward your clarifications.
Author Response
Dear authors,
this is a manuscript where a reader can realice the intense campaign of work you did and the effort behind. Besides that, it is interesting to know the distribution of the different species and their pathogenic degee too. However, this manuscript could be much more enhanced to ease the lecture. There are sections that should be improved and the order matters, I recommend you follow a cronological order and explain deeper the procedures done due to sometimes it is hard to follow.
It seems that this manuscript was not reviewed carefully, so I decided to notice the main concerns to review it again when methodology and results are clearer.
I do not know if it is a mistake of format by your side or by the system but there are mistakes such as the use of capital letters to name a specie.
In addition, I realice that you cited many times your collegue and co-author Mantzoukas, however I am not sure he will agree with the sentences written. Please review this and the references used, although the majority are well written (no mistakes in the text) and are appropiate to support the context of the manuscript.
Looking forward your clarifications.
Dear reviewer, thank you very much for your kind comments. We apologize for several typos and ambiguity in several parts of the text. By mistake, an earlier version of our study was submitted to the system rather than the final version. As you will see, all typos have been corrected and in many places the text has been rewritten to make it easier for the reader to understand. We look forward to your comments in order to further improve our study.
Reviewer 3 Report
the authors have done a nice piece of work.
Author Response
the authors have done a nice piece of work.
Thank you very much for your kind comments.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I find that the manuscript has been sufficiently improved and is suitable for publication.
