A Continental-Scale Connectivity Analysis to Predict Current and Future Colonization Trends of Biofuel Plant’s Pests for Sub-Saharan African Countries

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this study, the authors leverage ecological niche models to predict the spread of an impactful pest species on a crop (J. curcas), that has high economic value in sub-saharan Africa, and therefore the results have the potential to be incredibly impactful for a large number of people.

Their methods seem sound to the best of my expertise and their results are well-presented. The writing is good, with only some minor issues. Certainly, the authors could do more to expand on the background of their methods and they do seem to cite themselves a disproportional amount (26% of citations are self-citations) so I would recommend expanding their literature search a little bit outside the working group.

Still, this paper is a worthy contribution in my mind and should be published after minor revisions.

Introduction:

I would like to see the authors include a couple lines of background/analysis regarding Environmental Niche Models (ENMs). Given that they use this tool in their work, it would make sense to include more information regarding the wide-ranging applicability of this technology.

e.g. Gray LN, Barley AJ, Poe S, et al (2019) Phylogeography of a widespread lizard complex reflects patterns of both geographic and ecological isolation. Mol Ecol 28:644–657. doi: 10.1111/mec.14970

L53–L56: These two paragraphs are each a sentence long. Either combine with the preceding or following paragraph.

L66: “remains not investigated” is an awkward way of saying it. Perhaps ‘remains uninvestigated” would be more appropriate.

Discussion:

L206–208: This listing of countries seems awkward and unnecessary. Perhaps the information that the authors are trying to convey could be placed in a table or figure instead?

L222: “Although” is misspelled

References are sloppy. Capitalization of article titles and journal titles is inconsistent and scientific names are not always italicized in the references. It’s minor, but suggests a lack of attention to detail and laziness when authors fail to correct easy things like this. Also, what is going on with that really long URL at #43? (which also formats its authors differently)

Author Response

In this study, the authors leverage ecological niche models to predict the spread of an impactful pest species on a crop (J. curcas), that has high economic value in sub-saharan Africa, and therefore the results have the potential to be incredibly impactful for a large number of people.

Their methods seem sound to the best of my expertise and their results are well-presented. The writing is good, with only some minor issues. Certainly, the authors could do more to expand on the background of their methods and they do seem to cite themselves a disproportional amount (26% of citations are self-citations) so I would recommend expanding their literature search a little bit outside the working group.

Still, this paper is a worthy contribution in my mind and should be published after minor revisions.

Introduction:

I would like to see the authors include a couple lines of background/analysis regarding Environmental Niche Models (ENMs). Given that they use this tool in their work, it would make sense to include more information regarding the wide-ranging applicability of this technology.

e.g. Gray LN, Barley AJ, Poe S, et al (2019) Phylogeography of a widespread lizard complex reflects patterns of both geographic and ecological isolation. Mol Ecol 28:644–657. doi: 10.1111/mec.14970

• Corrected. We removed self-citations and increased the information about general methods L 136-145.

L53–L56: These two paragraphs are each a sentence long. Either combine with the preceding or following paragraph.

• Corrected

L66: “remains not investigated” is an awkward way of saying it. Perhaps ‘remains uninvestigated” would be more appropriate.

• Corrected

Discussion:

L206–208: This listing of countries seems awkward and unnecessary. Perhaps the information that the authors are trying to convey could be placed in a table or figure instead?

• Thank you for your comment, as we realized that the countries listed seemed to derive from our analyses, thus we changed the text to better clarify this concept. Indeed, these are the ones resulting from the Gexsi report (2008), reference n. 44. We believe that these should be kept in the text, as they represent a starting point by which our results can be compared.

L222: “Although” is misspelled

• Corrected

References are sloppy. Capitalization of article titles and journal titles is inconsistent and scientific names are not always italicized in the references. It’s minor, but suggests a lack of attention to detail and laziness when authors fail to correct easy things like this. Also, what is going on with that really long URL at #43? (which also formats its authors differently)

• For an unknown reason, the Reference manager software changed many of them in an awkward way. We turned it off and corrected all of them. Thank you for your attention.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

The submitted manuscript titled „A continental-scale connectivity analysis to predict current and future colonization trends of biofuel plant’s pests for sub-Saharan African countries”  contains interesting and valuable outcommes. However, I have found some flawns, which should be improved before an eventual publication. I have listed them below:

1. I suggest to improve the text in lines 69-79. In my opinion it contains the mix of aims and description of applied methods. I think that at the end of chapter „Introduction” the main goal and/or specific aims of investigations should be listed. The description of method might be placed in subchapter „The study design”.
2. Lines 83-87. In my opinin the description of study species is too short. I suggest to enlarge it and include data on life form, lifespan, reproduction and habitat affiliation, as well as insect pests of Jatropha curcas. I suggest to add text from line 42.
3. Text in lines 97-99 is not suitable for chapter „Material and methods”. In my opinion it should be placed in chapter „Inroduction”.
4. The graph in Figure 1 is illegible.
5. In my opinion the „Discussion” should be enlarged.
6. I suggest to look into below-listed literature sources, whichperhaps might be helpful in manuscript improvement:

• Terren et al. 2012. Principal Disease and Insect Pests of Jatropha curcas L. in the Lower Valley of the Senegal River. Tropicultura 30, 4, 222-229.
• Habou et al. 2014. Insects Associated With Jatropha curcas Linn. (Euphorbiaceae) in West Niger. Journal of Insect Science 14(1): 255.
• Prasad et al. 2012. Jatropha curcas: Plant of medical benefits. Journal of Medicinal Plant Research 6(14): 2691-2699.
• Chowdhury et al. 2016. Pest control for Jatropha curcas plant through viral disease: A mathematical approach. Nonlinear Studies 23(4):515-530.
• Thunes et al. 2016. Pest damage on Jatropha curcas (Euphorbiaceae): the effect of seedling irrigation in Sahelian Niger. International Journal of Tropical Insect Science 36(3): 140 – 145.
• Lashari et al. 2017. Monitoring of insect pests and their natural enemies on biodiesel plant, Jatropha curcas L. Sci.Int.(Lahore),29(4),985-991.

Author Response

Dear Authors,

The submitted manuscript titled „A continental-scale connectivity analysis to predict current and future colonization trends of biofuel plant’s pests for sub-Saharan African countries”  contains interesting and valuable outcommes. However, I have found some flawns, which should be improved before an eventual publication. I have listed them below:

I suggest to improve the text in lines 69-79. In my opinion it contains the mix of aims and description of applied methods. I think that at the end of chapter „Introduction” the main goal and/or specific aims of investigations should be listed. The description of method might be placed in subchapter „The study design”.

• We changed Introduction as suggested, listing our aims at the end of the paragraph, also integrating part of the removed Methods from Introduction to the “Connectivity modelling” subchapter. We avoided creating another subchapter, as the manuscript is already packed with many of them.

Lines 83-87. In my opinin the description of study species is too short. I suggest to enlarge it and include data on life form, lifespan, reproduction and habitat affiliation, as well as insect pests of Jatropha curcas. I suggest to add text from line 42.

• We added more information about the plant in the specific paragraph of Material and Methods.

Text in lines 97-99 is not suitable for chapter „Material and methods”. In my opinion it should be placed in chapter „Inroduction”.

• We added the specific information of the exclusion of Madagascar from our analyses, and deleted the rest of the sentence from both Material and Methods and Introduction, as the information was practically identical.

The graph in Figure 1 is illegible.

• We added a new version of Fig. 1.

In my opinion the „Discussion” should be enlarged.

I suggest to look into below-listed literature sources, which perhaps might be helpful in manuscript improvement:

Terren et al. 2012. Principal Disease and Insect Pests of Jatropha curcas L. in the Lower Valley of the Senegal River. Tropicultura 30, 4, 222-229.

Habou et al. 2014. Insects Associated With Jatropha curcas Linn. (Euphorbiaceae) in West Niger. Journal of Insect Science 14(1): 255.

Prasad et al. 2012. Jatropha curcas: Plant of medical benefits. Journal of Medicinal Plant Research 6(14): 2691-2699.

Chowdhury et al. 2016. Pest control for Jatropha curcas plant through viral disease: A mathematical approach. Nonlinear Studies 23(4):515-530.

Thunes et al. 2016. Pest damage on Jatropha curcas (Euphorbiaceae): the effect of seedling irrigation in Sahelian Niger. International Journal of Tropical Insect Science 36(3): 140 – 145.

Lashari et al. 2017. Monitoring of insect pests and their natural enemies on biodiesel plant, Jatropha curcas L. Sci.Int.(Lahore),29(4),985-991.

Thank you for the comment. We enlarged the discussion and added the references suggested.

• We added a new paragraph, citing the suggested references, in L 242-244.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Your manuscript have received a great improvement, therefore in my opinion it might be published in present form.