The Effects of Varying Combinations of Dietary Selenium, Vitamin E, and Zinc Supplements on Semen Characteristics and Antioxidant Enzyme Activity of Spermatozoa in 1-Year-Old Native Turkish Ganders

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study has determined the effects of dietary Selenium, Vitamin E, Zinc and their  combinations on semen quantity, quality and oxidative enzyme activities of spermatozoa in 1-year-old native Turkish ganders. The topic is interesting. The writting is fine. The following revision could improve the quality of the paper. 

1. Line 19, please check the 'Vitamin E' should be '(Vit E)' or 'VitE'? 

2. Line 30, please check that the abbreviation should be appeared with their full name when it was firstly appeared in the manuscript. Such as: GST, MDA and etc.

3. Lines 42-46, Indeed, the high ROS levels are known to be associated with poor sperm quality and infertility in male. Deficency of these elements will cause high ROS. However, too much selenium also cause ROS and reduced the sperm quality. Please cite the recent publication for the selenium stduies. Such as: Both selenium deficiency and excess impair male reproductive system via inducing oxidative stress-activated PI3K/AKT-mediated apoptosis and cell proliferation signaling in testis of mice. Free Radical Biology and Medicine. 2023; Selenium deficiency dysregulates one-carbon metabolism in nutritional muscular dystrophy of chicks. The Journal of Nutrition. 2023; Selenium deficiency-induced multiple tissue damage with dysregulation of immune and redox homeostasis in broiler chicks under heat stress. Science China Life Sciences. 2023.

4. Line 113, please explain the rationale for the dose chosen for these elements.

5. How often did do the artificial semen collection in your study? 

6. In all the tables, the different letter which indicat the significant difference should be written in superscript. 

7. Line 332, no need to use both full name and abbreviation in the footnote of the table. Please check the similar issue throughout the paper.

8. Line 439, usually, the refernece should not be appereaed in the conclusion section. 

9. Please check the grammar throughout the paper.

10. Please check the reference and make sure they are followed the journal style. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Nice job. Please consider the following

1. Add a simple summary before the abstract as the journal requires

2. In line 83 and 84. Please remove the dates. Dates when experiment started and finished are not required.

3. You had 8 ganders per treatment. How many replicates did you have?

4. Figure 1 and 2, please make sure to improve the quality of all the images. They look blurry, specially the numbers

5. Make sure that the letter means are in superscript in all the result tables

6. Please rewrite all the conclusions as they don't look like conclusions but like discussion

7. Try to find citations from other researchers. You cited yourself about 8 times

8. Did you all have an approved animal research protocol to conduct this experiment? Please mention the serial number

No comments in this section

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

1. Please add the animal research protocol and approval number at the beginning of the "materials and methods section"

2. Please make sure that mean letters are in the "superscript form"

 

 

 

None

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Suggested minor revisions have been made in the text of the manuscript and are highlighted in yellow.

Thank you for your valuable contributions to the improving of our paper.

 

Best regards,

Corresponding author