Thirty Years of Research and Professional Work in the Field of Biological Control (Predators, Parasitoids, Entomopathogenic and Parasitic Nematodes) in Slovenia: A Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors
Your paper treated a relevant and very actual topic on a biological control; it is well-structured, written in good English; the literature review is up-to-date and well focused.
The paper makes an excellent review of the work on biological control of the pest that has been done in Slovenia.
I have some doubts related to organization of the text. I would suggest to slightly re-organize the paper. The chapters 7, 8 , 9 and 10 are presenting “post-Milevoj era” i.e. research in the past 15 years. Actually this part of the manuscript is dealing again (the same as chapter 3) with inventarisation, laboratory and field study of different groups of beneficial organisms. Therefore the chapters 7,8,9 and 10 could be organized into one chapter (entitled for example "Research in the past 15 years") with four sub-chapters.
The chapter 5 with two examples could be moved as the last chapter proving the concept of excellent cooperation and good continuation of research work at the Biotechnical Faculty.
Specific comment:
Line 240-247: There are wrong statements: Anthocoris species are mot predatory mites. Please rewrite the sentence.
Kind regards
Author Response
R1 Your paper treated a relevant and very actual topic on a biological control; it is well-structured, written in good English; the literature review is up-to-date and well focused.
The paper makes an excellent review of the work on biological control of the pest that has been done in Slovenia.
I have some doubts related to organization of the text. I would suggest to slightly re-organize the paper. The chapters 7, 8 , 9 and 10 are presenting “post-Milevoj era” i.e. research in the past 15 years. Actually this part of the manuscript is dealing again (the same as chapter 3) with inventarisation, laboratory and field study of different groups of beneficial organisms. Therefore the chapters 7,8,9 and 10 could be organized into one chapter (entitled for example "Research in the past 15 years") with four sub-chapters.
Response: Thank you for valuable comments. I re-organized the chapters 7-10, which are now 4 sub-chapters of the chapter 7. The new title of the chapter 5 is »Activities in the past 15 years«. And the number of conclusion chapter is now 8, instead of 11 (in a previous version of the ms).
The chapter 5 with two examples could be moved as the last chapter proving the concept of excellent cooperation and good continuation of research work at the Biotechnical Faculty.
Response: Thank you for valuable comment, however 2 samples of classical biological control, which was implemented in different »biological control era« in Slovenia, i.e. before and after implementation of the Rules on biological plant protection, are so important and different events that they deserve a separate chapter (5) in a review.
Specific comment:
Line 240-247: There are wrong statements: Anthocoris species are mot predatory mites. Please rewrite the sentence.
Response: Done. Predatory »mites« was replaced with »bugs«.
Reviewer 2 Report
The review, "Thirty years of research and professional work in the field of biological control (predators, parasitoids, entomopathogenic and parasitic nematodes) in Slovenia", well summarized and described Dr. Lea Milevoj's work in Slovenia. She is a path-breaker to develop those biological controls in the country. The researches and works listed in the manuscript are useful for other countries surrounding Slovenia for the weather condition, moisture, pest species and others might be similar.
Two suggestions:
- The manuscript is well written, but some sentences are too long to be read easily. Try to shorten some sentences or divide one to two sentences.
- Authors might discuss whether other biological controls, such as Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) are available in Slovenia.
Author Response
R2 The review, "Thirty years of research and professional work in the field of biological control (predators, parasitoids, entomopathogenic and parasitic nematodes) in Slovenia", well summarized and described Dr. Lea Milevoj's work in Slovenia. She is a path-breaker to develop those biological controls in the country. The researches and works listed in the manuscript are useful for other countries surrounding Slovenia for the weather condition, moisture, pest species and others might be similar.
Two suggestions:
1.The manuscript is well written, but some sentences are too long to be read easily. Try to shorten some sentences or divide one to two sentences.
Response: Thank you for valuable comment, however as non-native English person I wanted to avoid such problems with a help of English experts from American Journal Experts. I am aware that some sentences are long, but I am convinced that this does not reduce their scientific relevance.
2.Authors might discuss whether other biological controls, such as Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) are available in Slovenia.
Response: Thank you for valuable comment. Preparations created on the basis of entomopathogenic bacteria (and of entomopathogenic fungi and viruses as well) are regulated in the same way as plant protection products, which are regulated by the Plant Protection Products Act (Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, no. 83/12). This fact is mentioned in the lines 116-119. We decided to present only the research and professional activities, which are connected with the parasitoids, predators and nematodes, since they are covered in the Rules on biological plant protection. Therefore the activities in the field of entomopathogenic bacteria, fungi and viruses are not presented in the paper.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors reviewed various examples of biological control in Slovenia and this is helpful to know how the biological control has developed there. Therefore, this review should be interesting to only readers in Slovenia and surrounding countries but not to people in other areas. I recommend to revise the manuscript to be of interest to wider readers.
Author Response
R3 The authors reviewed various examples of biological control in Slovenia and this is helpful to know how the biological control has developed there. Therefore, this review should be interesting to only readers in Slovenia and surrounding countries but not to people in other areas. I recommend to revise the manuscript to be of interest to wider readers.
Response: Thank you for valuable comment, however the main aim of the review paper about the chronology of 30-years activities in the field of biological control in Slovenia was to present an example of close connection between research and professional work, the results of which can be effectively implemented in practice with exemplary cooperation with the legislative branch of government. And this information can be of great help to countries around the world where biological control does not yet have a homeland right.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors
I appreciate the improvements in the manuscript. I think that now the manuscript is acceptable to be published.
Author Response
Thank you for valuable comments.
Reviewer 3 Report
This manuscript is interesting because it describes the history of Biological control in Slovenia well.
The description in 7.2 is less specific than the others, because the target animal species is ambiguous. Limacidae and Arionidae are very big slug groups. If possible please show specific species names.
Author Response
Thank you for valuable comments. In the corrected version (chapter 7.2) I added the species names of Arionidae and Limacidae slugs, i.e.:
p. 5, line 230-232: The most widespread species in Slovenia are Arion vulgaris Moquin-Tandon, Arion hortensis (Férussac) and Arion rufus (L.), which have been most intensively studied for the presence of parasitic nematodes.
p. 5, lines 241-242: Among the latter, the most common species in Slovenia are Deroceras reticulatum (O. F. Müller) and Limax maximus L.
