Management of the Common Vole in the Czech Lands: Historical and Current Perspectives

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript is a historical and current review of literature pertaining to vole control methods in the area of the Czech Republic. I appreciate the historical context and that the authors integrate how vole management works (or does not work) within the framework of changing agronomic practices and environmental opinions of the general public.

Outside of a few minor issues (line by line below), my major concern is the order of section 4 -Methods of controlling common voles. The first half splits into subsections by time period and talks about the methods within this. The second half changes into subsections based on control method with the time periods talked about chronologically within the subsection. Maybe pick a method to have more parallel structure for comparison or be more explicit about why the sudden change (or even make a different larger section all together?).

Minor comments:

“1950ies” and other similar phrasing should be changed to “1950’s” – happens in several of the subsection titles and a few times throughout the manuscript text

Line 18 – take out “therefore” and put “practices” after “control”

Line 22 – there’s a paragraph break that is unnecessary

Lines 26-27 – move “owing to the high environmental risks” to the end of the sentence

Line 28 – change “but” to “and”

Line 35 – change “belongs to” to “is one of the”

Lines 39-40 – change “or more ecotone ones such as” to “as well as ecotones including”

Line 48 – insert “greater” after “magnitude”

Line 53 – insert “are” after “Ixodes ticks and”

Lines 64-65 – make the first sentence of this paragraph the last sentence of the prior paragraph for better flow

If you can, convert crown currency values to some current currency?

Line 95 – insert “crop” before “production”

Line 96 – replace “because” with “as”

100 – change “it tends to persist” to “has persisted”

Line 111 – insert “a” in between “significant” and “pest”

Lines 122-123 – can you expand on what these regulations said?

Line 130 – remove “the total”

Just curious, does bark chewing kill the tree or injure it enough to not withstand pests/pathogens? What is informing the tree losses?

Lines 145-146 – replace “could be” with “were”

Line 150 – change “few” to “several”

Line 152 – change “more” to “larger” and “leads” to “has led”

Line 171- change “have begun” to “began”

Line 177 – change “the crop” to “crops” and more “practically” to after “throughout”

Line 204 – change “are” to “have been”

Line 211 – change “in agriculture practice” to “in agricultural practices”

Line 217 – insert “of between “counts” and “re-opened”

Line 223 – remove “has” before “issued”

Line 248 – change “rely” to “and relied”

Line 251 – insert “that was” before “applicable”

Line 273 – remove “regularly”

Line 274 – specify when “if needed” refers to

Lines 312-319 – this paragraph could use an introductory sentence

Line 353-356 – combine these two sentences into one

Line 401 – define “mushy mass” earlier as it is not a standard phrase within the control practices for other organisms

Line 429 – insert “[to humans]” after “toxic” if true (added for clarification)

Line 431 – move “successfully” to after “phosphide”

Line 435 – need a space after the references

Line 485 – need a space between “containing” and “mainly”

Line 569 – removed “poisonous” before “dust”, is redundant

Lines 577-584 – what were the active ingredients of these products?

Line 596 – remove “and” before “were dying”

Line 606 – remove “sooner or later”

Line 607 – what does “(see)” refer to?

Line 624 – need comma before “most national”

Line 628 – insert “a” before “granulated feeding”

Lines 631-632 – change “allowed either in outbreaks according to the recommended dose” to “was”

Line 600 – remove “the” before “vole control”

Line 664 – make “incorporated” to “incorporate”

Lines 665-666 – change “enabled to retard” to “retards”

Lines 686-688 – when did this happen?

Line 687 – remove “has” before “proposed”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

 

I would like to thank you for the factual and helpful remarks on our manuscript. In the appendix you will find I hope satisfactory answers to your questions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript ID: agronomy-1779788

Type of manuscript: Review
Title: Management of the common vole in the Czech lands: historical and current perspectives

Radek Aulicky *, Emil Tkadlec, Josef Suchomel, Marcela Frankova, Marta Heroldová, Vaclav Stejskal

 

Review

Great review from the country, where small mammal investigations are going in many years. Therefore, manuscript deserves publication, and SI Rodents in Crop Production Agricultural Systems is the right place. More of the positive sides could be listed here, however, as manuscript is recommendable with no doubts, I will continue with comments: there are things to be done before acceptance.

 

1.       At least some information must be given as Material and methods, if not using this chapter, then presenting paragraph or two – how exactly literature sources were collected, what were selection and inclusion/exclusion criteria. Best if authors can write, if they meet PRISMA guidelines for reviews.

2.       I am not sure, if Graphiocal abstract is absolutely required, but from the Author guidelines it seems so. So GA was missing.

3.       Back matter is not fully represented, as there was financing source, authors need to confirm if there was " Any role of the funding sponsors in the choice of research project; design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results …. Any projects funded by industry must pay special attention to the full declaration of funder involvement. If there is no role, please state “The sponsors had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or writing of the study”.

4.       Conclusions section is much too long; please make it shorted and put only essential findings into it. Numbered list could be a good idea about shortening.

5.       References are not formatted according the Guideline (or – see Template). I understand that for review there was no requirement for full conformity, but this must be done before acceptance.

 

Smaller comments

6.       Abstract should be in single paragraph.

Introduction

7.       Line 37 and further on: [1–2], not [1-2], please follow Template

8.       Line 41: 200–600, not 200-600, please use en dash, not hyphen (Line 47 is ok)

9.       Lines 47, 25, 63, 70 and further on: use en dash, not hyphen in referring by numbers

Insert information on the collection of references after the Line 108

Line 109: country should not be abbreviated in the title

Line 110: language should be corrected. 'economic importance ' says they voles value. I am not the native speaker, so text should be shown to someone for the language editing.

Lines 130–131: it can cause the total damage up to 1 billion CZK (40 million EUR),

Line 136: mistype

Lines 140–146: please make difference between “forest stands” (tree stands) and “stands” expressed, because later you use “crops”

Line 155: (Czech Statistical Office 2020) should be cited by number and presented in References, indicating www and accession date

Line 162: more than 1.65 billion CZK,

Table 2 is not needed, as journal uses numerical referring. It might be presented as text, e.g.: 1893 [42], 1901–1903 [42,43] and so on. Please use en dash for the ranges.

Lines 223–224: norm should be given in References and cited as source

Table 3: Caption “Classification of the common vole densities according to [xx], effective from 1964.; top line “Index of re-opened burrow entrances per ha”; ranges in the Table body 0–5m 6–25 etc.; top line missing.

Table 4: top line missing; format caption accordingly; why “season of the year” – were there any other seasons?

Line 256: Figure 1, not Fig.

Table 5: use en dash for ranges

Figure 1: parts should be marked (a) and (b). in bold type, both in the figure and in the caption. Use en dash inside the figure.

Line 273: why months were abbreviated in the text?

Line 285: Link is not working, at least “as is”; it should be given as [xx] and copied to References; please check if new link is working.

Lines 290–293: please use the same separator for listed means

Line 303: 4–5 m

Lines 312–314: should be given as [xx] and copied to References

Line 361: 4.2.2. , the same as 4.2.1.

Line 358: start from Paz, A., Jareño, D., Arroyo, L., Viñuela, J., Arroyo, B., Mougeot, F., ... & Fargallo, J. A. (2013). Avian predators as a biological control system of common vole (Microtus arvalis) populations in north‐western Spain: experimental set‐up and preliminary results. Pest Management Science, 69(3), 444-450. and  Machar, I., Harmacek, J., Vrublova, K., Filippovova, J., & Brus, J. (2017). Biocontrol of common vole populations by avian predators versus rodenticide application. Polish Journal of Ecology, 65(3), 434-444. At least some references might be usable.

Line 402 and further: references should be given

Line 435: mistype

Line 522: recommended change „by several authors [96,106–109].“

Line 527: cite [xx], transfer source to References

Line 554: “anointed” – maybe “greased”?

Line 582 and further: “of 4–6 kg/ ha” , not “of 4-6 kg/1 ha”

Line 605: 60s … Tables

Table 6 has historical value only; please supply it in the Supplement, as Table S1; landscape orientation preferred, use abbreviations if needed to fit into 1 page for better readability. In the manuscript body this table is not needed.

References: supply DOI numbers where possible and follow formatting as given in the https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy/instructions#preparation and

https://www.mdpi.com/authors/references

lines 927–929 - reference broken by accidental “enter”s

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

 

I would like to thank you for the factual and helpful remarks on our manuscript. In the appendix you will find I hope satisfactory answers to your questions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx