Effects of Weather on Sugarcane Aphid Infestation and Movement in Oklahoma

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

 Pls see the attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Dear Authors,

              The weather effects on animals and plants species are very interesting and is a good subject to understand better their ecology in the actual context of climate change. However, this manuscript has too many desynchronizations / problems / missing information. The authors present a series of mathematical formula, which are more or less explained and used. The Method section is not very clearly explained and has many shortcomings! The results section starts with a series of tests which are not presented in the Methods section and the discission section is almost absent! The Conclusion section contain many citations.

Major comments:

-          What type of correlation tests are you reported in the results section (Line 565, Table 3).

-          Why you select Morans’ index? How did you use it? Which software did you use? (Lines 566 – 571)

-          How your results suggest that the weather variables tend to cluster? Which test did you used? (Lines 572 – 574)

-          What variables did you used for the BSJK test? (Lines 577 – 580)

-          How did you used Breusch-Godfrey test? This test, like the previous ones, is not explained in the methods section! (Lines 581 – 590)

-          Wald test???

-          Fractional regression?

-          Discussion section is almost inexistent!

Minor/punctual comments:

Line 133 – 135 there is a citation, you need to add it correctly!

Line 144 – 147 you have two citations here, add them correctly!

Line 161 – 162: there is a citation, you need to add it correctly!

Line 190 – 193: there is a citation, you need to add it correctly!

Line 212 – 214: there is a citation, you need to add it correctly!

Line 427 – 428: there is a citation, you need to add it correctly!

Table 4 and 5 should be in the Results section

Figure 7 should be in the Results section!

Best regards,

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

The authors have revised the paper as per suggestions

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Dear Authors,

      This manuscript form still has many problems in structure and writing. The method and results section is mixed. There are parts in methods which explain other studies (e.g., DeSouza, M. and Armstrong, J.). You can cite these studies, but not presenting here. If you want to discuss them you should do this in discussion section! Also, the methods section is not very clear!

   In results section you have also some parts which should be in methods (some of them you can find in minor comments). Add all figures and tables at this section, not at the end of the manuscript!

   Discussion section is extremely short and is not discussion! Here you must discuss your results comparing with other similar studies and give more explanations why and how you can apply, use those results. See discussion section explanations!

   In conclusion, the manuscript should be restructured!

Minor comments:

Line 344: How did you include fixed versus random effects?

Line 444: Without „as indicated by the red square.”

Line 445: How could be „…wind direction was in a S-N direction….”?; Where is this “cone of 22.5” If you are referring to Figure 6 you have to mention it, but is not necessary to present what is already illustrated in the Figure. You can add text to go further with your explanations.

Line 446: You must mention the Figure if you are referring to it.

Lines 469 – 478: Should be in Methods section.

Lines 488 – 497: Should be in Methods section.

Lines 556 – 558: Should be in Methods section.

Line 562: What means reasonable accurate?

Line 565 – 567: the Figure description should be in the Figure caption.

Best regards,

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

English writing is very poor, many sentences are not structured properly and do not make any sense e,g, line no 14; 16; 24; 25; 26; 41; 106; 158; 332 etc.

when authors are using any short form they should elaborate it first.

references are not written in proper format 

eq 1 and it’s description doesn’t match 

research gap is not properly mentioned 

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper addresses an interesting concept, but the presentation is seriously flawed, and it must be corrected before the manuscript can be reconsidered for publication.  Some of these points may seem trivial, but they point to a lack of attention to detail.  The authors are, in a very real sense, painting with a dirty brush.  There were so many misspellings that I don't know if I found them all.  Spell check is a wonderful tool.  Species names must all be italicized.  Generally speaking, in scientific writing, authors names follow species names at first mention in the text.

Right from the beginning, Type of the Paper (Article.) should have been Article.  Then in the list of authors, there are asterisks after both Vitale's names, apparently indicating corresponding authors.  Yet the second corresponding author's email address is that for Dayton Lambert.  Who is the correct second corresponding author, and why does this paper need two?

In the abstract there is a long run-on sentence:  "Sugarcane aphids have caused economic damage on sorghum and other grain production in Oklahoma Although insecticides when applied in a timely manner provide efficient control, it is hard to protect against unexpected heavy infestations."

(Sorghum bicolor ssp. bicolor) should be (Sorghum bicolor ssp. bicolor).  Does the journal require author's names after scientific names of plant species? 

Melanaphis sacchari (Zehntner) (Hemiptera: Aphididae) should be Melanaphis sacchari (Zehntner) (Hemiptera: Aphididae).

MDPI style requires references to be cited via a numeral in order of citation in the text.  Yet starting from line 50 until line 58 a number of referenced are cited by author's name and year.

Line 54: italicize Pinus strobiformis.

Line 59:  spacing.

Line 63:  Insect, not "inect".

Lines 69, 76, 77, 79, 118:  Name and year citations rather than numeric.  Also, what's with the font change in the middle of the manuscript?

Did I miss something, or did the section headings jump from 2.2.1 to 2.2.4?  For that matter, how did the paper go from 2.1 to 2.2.X?

The footnote on page 5 is distracting and the information should be incorporated into the text.  Better still, some of the long explanatory passages could be removed and citations given for the various formulae used.  As it is, this part of the paper reads more like a lecture on quantitative business analysis rather than explanation of methodology.

Now I am confused.  Line 144 reads "2.2.1" and so does line 232.

Section 2.3:  why change the spacing of this paragraph?

Page 10:  another distracting footnote.

Table 2 is a hellishly disorganized mess.  I'd incorporate footnote 2 into the text (this explains the possible introduction of the aphid into Oklahoma from Texas) and cite the source material in the references section and delete Table 2 altogether.

Line 389 & Table 4:  The Breusch-Godfrey statistic is presented but was never mentioned in the Methods section.

The information in lines 362-367 should be in the results, not the methods.

Line 421: the regression, not "th eregression".

Line 425:  rather, not "rahter".

Line 477:  challenged, not "challended".

Line 485: scrutiny, not "scrutuny".

Line 486: suggests, not "suggets".

Line 490: Artificial intelligence, not "Artifical intellgince".

Line 491: explored, not "expored".

Tables 5 & 6 should be reworked to neaten the columns and reconcile the position of the columns with the respective headings.

Refence 6:  This reference has all of the words capitalized but none of the other references do.  Why?

Reference 19:  Why are these authors in all caps?  Also, italicize Sitobion avenae.

Line 511: spacing.

Line 513: italicize Sitobion avenae.

Line 521: italicize Rhopalosiphum padi.

Lines 526 & 527: italicize Spodoptera frugiperda.

Line 536: italicize Plutella xylostella.  In fact, check all scientific names throughout the manuscript to make sure that they are italicized.

Check all journal names to see that they are abbreviated according to MDPI style

Throughout the references section:  Why are most journal titles capitalized but not Journal of Economic Entomology?