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I confirm that the authors have considered all the reviewers' comments. Previous reviewers were not invited, I have assessed the corrections myself and am satisfied with the current version. I consider the manuscript ready for publication.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Valeria Souza, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
Dear authors, please carefully correct all reviewers' comments and submit the final version of the manuscript for acceptance for publication.
No comment.
The issues raised in the first review have been addressed.
In the response, the authors wrote that information on statistical analyses has been incorporated into the methodology, but I didn't see this addition (examining homogeneity of variance between trials and then combining the results from the three tests) and recommend that it be checked.
No comment.
Overall, the authors addressed and improved many of the points raised in the first review. However, I found a few things that should be checked before acceptance. I list these below:
L01, L44, L61, L76 = I missed this in the first revision, but now I realize you are using two names for the genera, "Allantoides" and "Allantus". A quick search on Google indicates that "Allantus" is the correct one. Then, I recommend checking this information and making the necessary corrections.
L66 = Correct "it is rich active compunds" to "it is rich in active compounds".
L85 = Correct "chemicles" to "chemicals".
L90 = In the fragment "until the its death", "the" is unnecessary.
L100 = "pathogenicity andinfection processes"; include space: "and infection".
L105 = "F. esculentum"; the scientific name should be italicized.
L116 = "incubated at at 25°C"; "at" is doubled.
L125 = "maintained on PDA liquid medium"; as you are working with a liquid medium, I suppose it does not have agar. You could use "maintained on potato dextrose broth (PDB) medium".
L141 = "primer1 2 µL, primer4 2 µL"; this fragment sounds confusing. A suggestion would be "2 µL of each primer".
L165 = "Mortality rate (%) = medication treatment group average deadth/test number × 100%"; I didn't see a mention of this in the text. I suggest removing it or writing something like: "The mortality rate was determined as follows: ...".
L175 = "larvea" correct to "larvae".
L189 = "andthe histopathological changes"; include space: "and the".
L194 = What percentage of significance did you adopt? Was it 5%?
L203 = "transparente"; "hyaline" would sound better.
L227 = Correct "boserved" to "observed".
L232 = "be due tospores not only"; include space: "to spores".
L239 = "After" to "after".
L287 = Correct "Althrough" to "Although".
L291 = Correct "tpests" to "pests".
L308 = Correct "with increaseds" to "increasing".
L308 - L320 = As you are relating the results of Ren (2014), I suggest reordering the sentence and including the citation at the end, as follows: "... compared to the spraying method (Ren, 2014)".
L321 = "(Lei, 2010)"; please, check this citation. I didn't find this paper in the references.
L341 = "and theother is by"; include space: "the other".
L344 = "Thespores primarily"; include space: "The spores".
L355 = "B. mori"; Since you have not mentioned this organism before, please specify the generic epithet.
Figure 2 = I strongly advise you to check the generic epithet you are using in this phylogenetic tree. According to Species Fungorum and Mycobank, Isaria cateniannulata and Paecilomyces cateniannulatus are not valid names and must be replaced with the current and accepted genus Cordyceps.
Figures 4 and 5 = In the text of these figures, I believe there was a mistake in inserting the sentence "A1: impregnation method; A2: spray method." in the caption of Figure 5, when it should have been placed in Figure 4.
Dear colleagues,
The article is very interesting, but it needs corrections. Please carefully correct the comments indicated by the first reviewer and prepare a response to these comments.
Below are technical corrections to the figures that need to be corrected.
In figure 1c, the micrometers are written incorrectly. In this figure, it is necessary to sign with letters or numbers those elements of the image that the reader should pay attention to (the same applies to other microphotographs in the article). From the title of figure 1, the words "under the microscope (400×)" should be removed.
The title of the ordinate axis of figures 3, 4 and 5 is incorrect (it should be written "Characteristic name comma %"). Delete the legend in figure 3.
Why are not all columns in figures 4 and 5 +- standard error?
In figure 7, it is impossible to read how long the bar is in micrometers above it. Remember that the size of all letters and all numbers in all drawings should not differ from the size of the letters in the text of the article, that is, approximately 8 or 9 points.
The article is written in English and sounds clear. However, adjustments are necessary, as some words were written without spaces (e.g., lines 101, 160, 174, etc.). I highlighted in purple all the words written without spaces that I saw, and other minor mistakes were highlighted in blue in the PDF file (attached). However, I strongly advise reviewing the text.
In the introduction, the authors presented an adequate justification for the work. References are pertinent and up-to-date. The article is structured as suggested in the "Instructions for Authors". Raw data are available.
The research adheres to the scope of the journal. The research question is well-defined and relevant to the problem regarding the management of the pest. Bioassays were conducted three times, which provides confidence in the obtained results.
However, aiming to allow reproducibility, a few details regarding the procedures are necessary (as commented in the attached file).
I have important considerations regarding your phylogenetic analysis.
- Include a table with information, such as origin, host, substrate, and GenBank accession number, for the isolates used in the analysis.
- Just the ITS region was used for the sequencing. It would be more robust to consider adopting another informative region for the genus, such as TEF.
- Consider including other species of Cordyceps in the analysis.
Other points are related to the statistical analysis.
- Did you use the T-test in the first assay "5.1 Screening of the strains of entomopathogenic fungi with high mortality"? Since you are comparing more than two groups, I wonder if this test is better suited for this purpose... Perhaps a Tukey test would be better.
- For each analysis, did you combine the results of the three tests? If so, did you check the homogeneity of variance between trials? It would be good to include this information in the methodology.
The morphological and phylogenetic results support the conclusion that the isolate belongs to the species Cordyceps cateniannulata. However, as stated above, more molecular information would be useful and provide a robust result. The results obtained for the mortality of the pest appear strong, as bioassays were conducted three times. Furthermore, the results regarding the infectious process and histopathological changes are quite elegant and give strength to the work. Even so, the way in which figures are presented could be improved, and suggestions were made in the attached PDF file.
The discussion is well-structured and correlated to the obtained results. In addition, it encompasses what was observed by other authors.
Since Cordyceps cateniannulata has been studied for various purposes (growth promotion, insects, and plant disease management), it was suggested to highlight this wide range of applications during the discussion (see attached file).
I believe this paper has the potential to be accepted in PeerJ, as it is within the journal's scope and addresses a new host of a fungus that has been studied for different purposes. However, before acceptance, and aiming to improve the quality of the paper, significant changes and corrections must be made.
The objectives of study is clearly given. In this study Cordyceps cateniannulata strains are examined controlling Allantoides luctifer larvae stages. The figures and tables are given properly. There are some minor errors on English terms.
Experimental design of the study is given clearly in the manuscript
Findings are given with explantaions, tables and figures. Findings are discused with related literature.
There are some written erros in the text
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