Effects of Prey Switching at Different Stages on Life Parameters of Neoseiulus bicaudus

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study investigates the effect of prey switching on life parameters of predatory mite N. bicaudus. I agree with the authors that their study provides interesting findings and contributes to the potential application of this natural enemy as biological control agent. I have only some minor comments (see below). I also think that language check will significantly improve the quality of the manuscript.

 

·        age-stage, two-sex life table

please, add comma to the expession throughout the manuscript (age-stage, two-sex life table)

 

·        line 50: Phytoseiidae – provide a short explanation to which higher taxonomic group it belongs (e.g. “Mites from the family Phytoseiidae…”)

 

·        line 53: delete “those from”

 

·        line 58: the statement that Te. turkestani serves as a prey for N. bicaudus is redundant, it is already mentioned in the previous sentence.

 

·        line 67: add space before bracket

 

·        lines 111-113: add this paragraph to the Results section

·        line 162: What do you mean by “origin 2023b software”? Please explain and add a citation

·        lines 227, 237, 257, 271: there is an error with a link to Tables and Figures, please correct

·        line 310: “… it is salso influenced…”

·        line 331: “…were decreased,…”

Comments on the Quality of English Language

language check will significantly improve the quality of the manuscript

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a paper addressing prey switching in predatory mites. Although the subject is interesting, it is unclear the purpose of the research or the implications of the findings. Writing, in the whole results section, is too repetitive and hard to follow, and discussion is way too short and light. I recommend a deep revision of the whole manuscript in order to improve the soundness of the research. I will expose next my concerns by sections.

Introduction is messy. It is very important to clearly state which is the problem the authors are trying to solve, which is the knowledge gap and which is the aim of the work. Here, the potential (or real) effects of prey switching over pest control are not explained, and I feel that should be the problem to solve: a pest that is affecting a given crop, which biological control strategies might be failing to control because of prey switching. But none of those implications, or precedents of prey switching in mites or particularly in N. bicaudus, are mentioned.

I am not sure if I understood how the experiment actually works. First of all, authors are not saying how many replicates they have for each treatment; I guess there were separated chambers with a limited number of eggs in each one, not all mites from each treatment being in the same place. Secondly, the chamber structure is kind of confusing. I suggest that, instead of current Figure 1 (that gives very little information), authors provide a figure to explain experimental design and/or chamber structure. Also, I think the prey switching needs some more explanation. I guess that, for instance, mites of PSP treatment are being fed on Ty. putrescentiae from the moment the eggs hatch, and when the protonymph stage starts the authors stop providing Ty. putrescentiae and start providing Te. turkestani, right? Therefore, mites from PSL treatments never fed on Ty. putrescentiae, so there is not a real prey switching on that case, is that correct?

In results, please avoid repetitive sentences, such as those in lines 167-171 or those in lines 189-195, although almost the entire results section is in that way. And please be careful with references, there are some errors (e.g., lines 227, 237, 257). Also, verb tenses must be revised: when results are given, past tense is used, but when a table or a figure is referenced, present tense should be used (e.g., in line 167, “the survival rate was shown in Table 1” should be changed by “the survival rate is shown in Table 1”).

The discussion section is not an actual discussion. Some results are compared to results from other authors, but there is a lack of a discussion of the implications of these results or a more detailed explanation of the physiology behind them.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Reviewer

 

Manuscript ID: agriculture-2956774

Type of manuscript: Article

Title: Effects of prey switching at different stages on life parameters of Neoseiulus bicaudus

Authors: Zixin Nie, Jianping Zhang, Jie Su *, Li Zuo, Siqiong Tang, Chen Fang, Ying Ma, Xiang Li

Abstract: The utilization of Tyrophagus putrescentiae as an alternative prey for mass breeding of N. bicaudus is employed to fulfill the demands of enhanced breeding efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Following the introduction of mass breed N. bicaudus into the agricultural ecosystem, there was a switching in the prey of N. bicaudus from Ty. putrescentiae to Tetranychus turkestani. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of prey switching at various stages on N. bicaudus. This study employed the age-stage two-sex life table to assess the life parameters of N. bicaudus undergoing prey switching at different stages. The results showed that the survival rate of N. bicaudus was significantly decreased, the developmental period was significantly prolonged, the fecundity was improved during prey switching, and the intrinsic rate of increase of N. bicaudus was significantly decreased. The negative effects of prey switching in larva and deutonymph stages were greater than those in protonymph and adult stages. The stage and age of N. bicaudus undergoing prey switching were positively correlated with the male ratio, and negatively correlated with the total preoviposition period and the mean generation time. The comprehension of prey switching effects on N. bicaudus can enhance our understanding of the predator adaptation to environmental changes and contribute to the artificial rearing and application of natural enemy.

 

 

Positive aspects:

·         The biological studies on mite species which are used in pest biological control are precious and have a high practical utilization in agriculture field.

·         The information presented in the manuscript is new and original.

·         The manuscript is sustained by a suitable and diverse literature, strongly connected with the proposed research area.

·         The manuscript is well structured.

·         The title is adequate and connected with the study content.

·         The methodology is detailed described, scientific argued, adequately for the proposed research area.

·         Results and discussion are detailed presented (the authors making a comparison with other results in the same research area).

·         The figures and tables are proper, reflecting the obtained results.

·         The proposed research subject is proper for Agriculture Journal.

 

 Comments:

 

·         Keywords (line 27): arrange them in alphabetic order.

·         In the introduction (lines 65-68), the objectives of the study are not clear defined.

·         On Mite Culture (line 70) the authors present the climatic condition for mite rearing. Please, insert the references for them

·         On life table analysis (line 119), authors described some life parameters as age-specific fecundity of females and age specific ????? of total population (I suppose, as in Figure 3). But what about l_xm_x?

·         On Pearson correlation analysis (line 162) the authors mentioned Origin 2023b software. Which is the reference?

·         On Table 1 (line 172) the authors mentioned the preadult stage. What it means? The preadult stages are larva, protonymph, deutonymph. I consider that this preadult stage is not proper used! It is used in the table 2, figures 3 and 4, also! Please, reconsider this parameter.

·         In table 2 (line 196), appear some parameters that are not described at methodology (see the manuscript). The same comments are for parameters from lines 202-208.

·         On discussion I recommend to consider the different chemical composition of the two preys: Tyrophagus putrescentiae and Tetranychus turkestani. Maybe you will find in the literature some differences, taking into consideration, in the same time,  the trophic preferences specific for each development stages (from larva to adult). Another undiscussed aspect is the quantity of food. The used prey species recorded the same weight? Does not influence the life table parameters?

·         Conclusions. I strongly recommend highlighting the practical importance of this study, focused on its implications agriculture.

·         References: Please, check if the all references were found in the manuscript and vice versa. Please, follow the instruction for the authors for references.

 

ALL these comments were inserting in the manuscript!

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have seen the new version of the manuscript. I think the authors have done a very good job, and it only needs some additional work to have it ready to be accepted. Here I explain my suggestions.

Introduction has significantly improved, although I feel that the last paragraph (lines 72-79) is odd. A methodology should not be justified here unless other commonly used methods have been proved not to be good enough to see the effect of prey switching. Maybe you are including this as the knowledge gap for the prey switching, but then it should be better connected to the previous paragraph and to the prey switching consequences for biological control. Please revise that. Also, the aim is essential in research, so it should be more detailed. Otherwise, just a few comments:

Line 44: The first time a species is mentioned in the text (the abstract does not count) should be written in full, not abbreviated.

Lines 67-68: Please indicate here which is the alternative prey.

Line 69: “It takes a few days for predator mite fed on Ty. putrescentiae…”

Line 70: Please put in lower case letters “turkestani”.

Material and methods and results sections are now fine. Discussion deserves a little more work. First of all, you are starting three paragraphs in the same way (“In this study”). Secondly, you measured so many parameters, but then you only discussed a few of them. For instance, why the switching affects more to some developmental stages than others? Why the male ratio is disrupted more or less depending on the developmental stage? Or which are the implications or the recommendations for biological control?

Additional general comments:

All the figure captions should be self-explanatory. For instance, caption in figure 1 could be something like “Developmental stages of Neoseiulus bicaudus and experimental treatments for prey switching from Tyrophagus putrescentiae to Tetranychus turkestani in each stage”. Please make sure all captions are self-explanatory.

Please revise the English language, I have found some mistakes (e.g., lines 33-34, in the sentence “The fecundity, survival, and development of predators can be adversely affected by prey switching on predators”, the underlined part seems unnecessary; in lines 41-42, all the enemies mentioned should be in plural).

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Please revise the English language, I have found some mistakes (e.g., lines 33-34, in the sentence “The fecundity, survival, and development of predators can be adversely affected by prey switching on predators”, the underlined part seems unnecessary; in lines 41-42, all the enemies mentioned should be in plural).

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors made the requested changes.

Author Response

We received no comment.