Nematicidal Effects of Four Terpenes Differ among Entomopathogenic Nematode Species
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments to the Author
The manuscript explores Nematicidal effects of terpenes among entomopathogenic nematode species. The information is quite important. There are several points to be addressed before publication.
Detailed comments as following.
ü The manuscript has consistency issue; they must be addressed.
ü The scientific names of organisms are not written properly, as somewhere they are written in full form and somewhere in short form, which should be consistent.
ü For detailed comments plz. See the attached reviewed file.
ü Lastly, there are several comments and highlighted points in the attached pdf file please consider them.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We really thank the reviewer for the insightful review comments. They were very helpful in improving the manuscript and our responses to each follow.
ü The manuscript has consistency issue; they must be addressed.
We followed the majority of your instructions
ü The scientific names of organisms are not written properly, as somewhere they are written in full form and somewhere in short form, which should be consistent.
We checked and we changed everything according to your directions
ü For detailed comments plz. See the attached reviewed file.
ü Lastly, there are several comments and highlighted points in the attached pdf file please consider them.
We followed the majority of your instructions
Sincerely,
Alexandros
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Overall, the language needs to be improved. Some references are missing in the article. I have provided specific comments on the manuscript which I hope that the authors find helpful. I also suggest the authors re-arranging the subtitles. There are some other problems evident that might be addressed by increasing the level of detail in the methods section.
The discussion needs considerable improvement as the authors compared their study with the Plant parasitic nematodes which is inappropriate.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
This paper has the potential to be accepted, but some important points have to be clarified or fixed.
Overall, the language needs to be improved. Some references are missing in the article. I have provided specific comments on the manuscript which I hope that the authors find helpful. I also suggest the authors re-arranging the subtitles. There are some other problems evident that might be addressed by increasing the level of detail in the methods section.
The discussion needs considerable improvement as the authors compared their study with the Plant parasitic nematodes which is inappropriate.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for the insightful review comments. They were very helpful in improving the manuscript and our responses to each follow. We take exception to just one of the suggestions.
Overall, the language needs to be improved. Some references are missing in the article. I have provided specific comments on the manuscript which I hope that the authors find helpful. I also suggest the authors re-arranging the subtitles. There are some other problems evident that might be addressed by increasing the level of detail in the methods section.
The discussion needs considerable improvement as the authors compared their study with the Plant parasitic nematodes which is inappropriate.
We believe that discussing EPN outcomes with PPN outcomes is not inappropriate. Allow me to clarify our statement.
There are no other EPN mortality results exposed to terpenes to discuss, primarily. It's my view that this is the primary report. In addition, waiting for new reports of PPNs to discuss the matter is unnecessary according to our beliefs.
In their shared rhizosphere environment, both PPN and EPNs encounter equivalent environmental dangers and predators while, in numerous cases though, only one resistant form exists as a single free-living stage (EPNs,IJs; RKN and CN, J2 etc)
Discussing EPN results with PPN results, we primarily aim to elucidate why we have proposed this hypothesis. Also, we intend on helping readers understand what LC50 means and making it clear that susceptibility towards terpenes depends on each individual species.
However, the reviewer makes the excellent point that we did not sufficiently explain our rationale on the divergence of mortality rates between both families
I believe that our discussion was enhanced by providing more evidence about these differences.
Sincerely,
Alexandros
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Corresponding Author
1) All of scientific names should be written as italics e.g., lines 32, 36, 95. Check them throughout the text.
2) You need to correct so many spelling errors. For instance, always there is a space between number and unit. e.g., lines 109-113, 120, 126, etc.
3) For identification of nematode species that you studied them in this experiment you need to have a molecular work for them with suitable markers. A phylogenetic tree is required.
4) If you buy the terpens from a corporation, you need to include GC-MS and/or LC/MS analysis certificates of them to confirm. Please add them as suppl. mat.
5) How you understand that your data follow normal distribution? Please describe that you check it or not. You may analyze your data with non-parametric statistical methods if your data are not follow normal distribution.
With Best Regards
Reviewer
Author Response
We really thank the reviewer for the insightful review comments. They were very helpful in improving the manuscript and our responses to each follow.
1) All of scientific names should be written as italics e.g., lines 32, 36, 95. Check them throughout the text.
we really thank you for the comments. We checked the whole narrative and we made all the changes according to your directions
2) You need to correct so many spelling errors. For instance, always there is a space between number and unit. e.g., lines 109-113, 120, 126, etc.
We also checked the whole narrative and we made all the changes according to your directions
3) For identification of nematode species that you studied them in this experiment you need to have a molecular work for them with suitable markers. A phylogenetic tree is required.
Molecular work has been done on our laboratory EPN cultures. We added the results confirming the correct identification of the strains, while the phylogenetic analysis added in the supplementary files
4) If you buy the terpens from a corporation, you need to include GC-MS and/or LC/MS analysis certificates of them to confirm. Please add them as suppl. mat.
Certifications were added in the supplementary materials.
5) How you understand that your data follow normal distribution? Please describe that you check it or not. You may analyze your data with non-parametric statistical methods if your data are not follow normal distribution.
The dataset was log-transformed in order to acquire a normal variance. lines 153-154
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for considering my suggestions.
Author Response
We really thank the reviewer for the insightful review comments. They were very helpful in improving the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Alexandros
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors covered all my suggestions and I have no further comments for the authors.
Author Response
We really thank the reviewer for the insightful review comments. They were very helpful in improving the manuscript
Sincerely,
Alexandros
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Corresponding Author
You need to submit gene/gene region of your nematodes that you sequenced into GenBank and take accession number and add them into the paper.
After that I think the paper is qualified enough to publication.
Regards
Author Response
We really thank the reviewer for the insightful review comments. They were very helpful in improving the manuscript
You need to submit gene/gene region of your nematodes that you sequenced into GenBank and take accession number and add them into the paper.
We submitted the sequences of the four cultures to NCBI Genbank and obtained accession numbers, which we provide in the Materials and Methods section and in the supplementary files.
Sincerely,
Alexandros
