Impact of Broad-Spectrum Lighting on Recall Behaviour in a Pair of Captive Blue-Throated Macaws (Ara glaucogularis)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments on the manuscript “Impact of broad-spectrum lighting on recall behaviour in a pair of captive Blue-throated macaws (Ara glaucogularis)”

General comments

I appreciate the opportunity to review the present manuscript. When using High Output T5 Fluorescent lamps in a conditioning protocol to enter an enclosure, the researchers observed that the effect on macaws was significant. That is, the birds preferred to spend more time inside the lighted enclosure, in contrast to the shorter time outside the enclosure.

The finding is interesting. It is new possibilities for a management that improves the welfare of macaws in captivity. The manuscript is sufficiently written to understand the rationale, method and interpretation of results. However, I understand that some parts of the manuscript could be improved. I suggest some modifications to the text, written below:

Keywords

Line 22: It is highly recommended not to be redundant with title words and keywords. The terms Blue-throated macaw and broad-spectrum lighting should be replaced. Another suggestion is to organize the keywords in alphabetical order.

Introduction

Line 30: The description of the ecology is complementary to the description of the morphology of the macaws. However, the description of the feather color pattern is long and not very impressive. I suggest replacing the text describing the colors of the feathers with a color photograph of the macaws. A photograph seems to be much more informative to the reader than a description of colors.

Material and Methods

Line 101: Note that “…24 of which were with T5 lamps off” is redundant.

Results

Table 1: Enter the unit of time (seconds) in the mean.

 

Author Response

We are grateful for the comments from the reviewer. Please see below responses to each point raised inthe review:

 

Keywords

Line 22: It is highly recommended not to be redundant with title words and keywords. The terms Blue-throated macaw and broad-spectrum lighting should be replaced. Another suggestion is to organize the keywords in alphabetical order.

Introduction

Line 30: The description of the ecology is complementary to the description of the morphology of the macaws. However, the description of the feather color pattern is long and not very impressive. I suggest replacing the text describing the colors of the feathers with a color photograph of the macaws. A photograph seems to be much more informative to the reader than a description of colors.

We agree that a photograph wou;d be useful, but we cannot include another figure within the guidance for a Communication piece.

 

Material and Methods

Line 101: Note that “…24 of which were with T5 lamps off” is redundant.

We have corrected this.

Results

Table 1: Enter the unit of time (seconds) in the mean.

We have corrected this

Reviewer 2 Report

Very interesting work on the influence of light spectra on animal species.

Just some considerations to improve the quality of the work towards its publication:

It is recommended to rewrite the abstract to make it more oriented towards the goals and expected results of the work

The introductory part requires a clear explanation of the objectives pursued by the work. A more extensive and up-to-date bibliographic review is recommended that justifies the need to carry out the planned study

Some references are not complete or son muy antiguas. It is recommended to include references to studies, works or articles more current and to be possible indexed in JCR or Scopus.

The Methodology should be better explained.

It is recommended to create a single section of Conclusions, where the scientific contribution of the work in relation to the objectives is clearly explained. And where the new research lines are clearly indicated. It would be especially interesting to relate the animal experiment with other experiments related to the circadian rhythm in other animal or human species

Author Response

We are grateful for the comments from the reviewer. We have responded to each point raised in turn, below.

 

It is recommended to rewrite the abstract to make it more oriented towards the goals and expected results of the work. 

We have now adjusted the Abstract so that goals and expected results are, in our view, clear.

 

The introductory part requires a clear explanation of the objectives pursued by the work. A more extensive and up-to-date bibliographic review is recommended that justifies the need to carry out the planned study. Some references are not complete or son muy antiguas. It is recommended to include references to studies, works or articles more current and to be possible indexed in JCR or Scopus.

We have clarified the ojectives of the work and included both more recent literature, and more formal literature as appropriate. 

 

The Methodology should be better explained.

We have edited the Methodology to make all points clear. If the reviewer has any particular points where they think additional clarity is required, we would be happy to adjust the MS accordingly.

 

It is recommended to create a single section of Conclusions, where the scientific contribution of the work in relation to the objectives is clearly explained. And where the new research lines are clearly indicated. It would be especially interesting to relate the animal experiment with other experiments related to the circadian rhythm in other animal or human species.

We have adjusted our Discussion to provide this information clearly. We have eleceted not to expeand discussion to include circadian rythmn, however, as we believe that this is to tenuously linked to our study. We did not measure any effects on circadian rythmn, and our experimental design does not permit us to interrogate questions in this area with any robustness. We have therefore retained a focus on the ability of the birds to discern colours under the different lighting arrangements and the likely impact on welfare and behaviour. 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have satisfactorily answered the questions raised. Could be accepted with the approval of the editors