Reproductive Behavior of Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) Relative to Different Host Plants in an Intensive Tomato Crop Region of Chile

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear colleagues,

The authors presented laboratory and field results on behaviour selection of the greehouse whitfly.

There is no novelty in this paper, but the authors provided great deal of data.
Overall, the paper is well organized, thats said it is still need improvement, particularly in discussion. Indeed, this last section is not coherent and quite difficult to follow and needs to be re-written.

In addition, in respect to the section of multiple choice test: I beleive that authors should have done one choice tests.
More comments in the attached pdf

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

I enoucrage the authors to edit carefully the E language.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. The answers are in the attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Kindly find my comments in the reviewed pdf.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Very minor English editing is needed.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. The answer you will find in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This article reports on the behavioral selection of Trialeurodes vaporariorum towards their different hosts. These results will provide a basis for the ecological control of greenhouse whiteflies during tomato cultivation.

The process of insects selecting hosts is inevitably related to the volatile components (VOCs) released by host plants. The method of investigating selectivity lacks certain preciseness, and there is contingency only through one minute observation. It would be better if other evidence on insect selection could be provided, including VOCs.

Perform analysis of variance on the data in Figure 5.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. The answers you will find in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The work by Marta V. Albornoz and colleagues show in this study, Behavior evaluation of Trialeurodes vaporariorum (West-2 wood) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) in different hosts in an in- 3 tensive zone of tomato crop. The principal goal of this work was to identify the host plants and facilitate whitefly monitoring and counting both inside and outside of greenhouses, as well as determine the behaviors, preferences, performance, and choices of T. vaporariorum in intensive production areas of Solanum lycopersicum.

I have found some minor details in the ms that need to be revised, which hopefully will improve the quality of the present work.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. The answer you will find in the attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

I noticed the paper sections are numbered thesis style, so make sure this is what Horticulturae will accept. Specific recommended changes are list below with the associated lines in the pdf document highlighted for your convenience. Some of the statistics, specifically mean separation, did not seem to use an appropriate test. Please check this. You need to be more clear in comparing greenhouse versus field grown tomato situations through out the paper as well as alternative host plants associated with each cropping system... were they different?  The ranking of host plants based on whitefly adults and eggs only can be very misleading relative to which are better reproductive host plants. Nymph data would help support the claim that they are truly reproductive host plants, not just adult feeding host plants. Evenso, you need to rank the hosts in Table 2 and specify what data you used to rank them, e.g. adults and eggs.

 The title needs to be more specific: Reproductive behavior of Trialeurodes vaporariorum (West-wood) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) relative to different host plants in an intensive tomato crop region of Chile 

"this insect’s reproductive behavior relative to tomato in greenhouse and field situations and associated host plants is still unclear."

"Significant differences were found in the pairwise choice test, showing a greater preference for S. lycopersicum than mallow, Arizona beggarticks, and thistle."

"The principal economic impact of this whitefly in Chile, i.e., strongly decreasing yields, was observed on tomato crops" (ref?)

"however, to manage this pest efficiently, it is necessary to recognize the principal host plants associated with the targeted crops, in order to develop an integrated management program."

"The field trials focused on population dynamics and the greenhouse or controlled environment studies focused on quantifying the reproductive behavior of this whitefly, specifically host preference and reproduction."

"Based on the ranked results of the T. vaporariorum host plant survey (Table 2)"

2.4.1. "Whitefly population dynamics in the Quillota Province"

2.4.4. "Host plant effect on population growth"

"Y-tube olfactometer (list the manufacturer name, city, state)"

"(mallow, Arizona beggarticks, thistle, and tomato as host plants and garlic and basil as negative scientific controls)" use scientific names throughout the paper

3.1. "Whitefly population dynamics"

"Table 2. Alternative hosts of Trialeurodes vaporariorum in an area with a high production of tomatoes in Chile." (provide a rank number in the table for each species relative to whitefly reproductive performance)

(GLM, χ2 = 21,445 df= 5; P = 0.001). (This test seems to call for a separation of means F test with two df values and a specific means test like Tukey’s. An overall chi-square test does not seem to fit here.)

"immature stages (eggs)" Eggs by themselves are not a good indication of the reproductive value for whiteflies, late instar nymphs would be better.

"A similar study was reported by López et al. [62], who conducted a choice trial with the same crop species" so did this paper add something different or differed in its ranking?

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

I provided a few sentence changes above.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. You will find the answers in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx