Comments from scientists???? Serving science???
I think they reaffirm the validity of the work, different in 'style'
For practical purpose we want to see the result.???
Reviewer 1
Testing new products linked to mosquito control and surveillance is an important aspect to improving our ability to combat the diseases caused by mosquito-transmitted pathogens. This manuscript attempts to describe an attractive toxic bait, which, if we believe the results, does attract mosquitoes. However, the study and the manuscript have not been rigorously implemented and should not be published in a scientific journal.
The introduction has numerous formatting issues: it starts with a conclusion, contains no citations, contains the large part of what should be the methods section, is largely speculative and does not explicitly state the aim of the study.
The methods are insufficiently described and key details have been omitted, for instance, the concentration of boric acid used in the baits, the dimensions of the bait station. There is no clear protocol outlined, and it would be impossible for anyone to repeat the experiments described herein. It is unclear where or when the study was conducted, or what species of mosquitoes were captured. The control treatment is not adequately defined in the text.
The results are inadequately described, and in fact are written as a list. The discussion makes baseless inferences about the local mosquito population or the distribution of mosquitoes in the area without any supporting data being presented.
Reviewer 2
The whole article should be rewritten. Extensive editing is required to make the text and causal links clearer. I wonder if the author already read a scientific article. I advise him/her strongly to look at the structures of scientific publications and writing style. This looks more to be a book story (neighbours were happy…The key was not the time of the day, but the sunrise… It became a laboring chore everyday to gather and kill…. These results came from hard lessons learned over 5 years….The greenhouse effect from a meters-away LED was too minuscule for us to glimpse, but the mosquitoes indeed possessed special capacities to sense such coolness on the other side….Thus, good days are yet to come etc etc) than the presentation of a scientific study. Due to the unstructured and non-comprehensively written article, I am unable to assess its scientific quality.
The introduction should be entirely rewritten in a scientific manner. It cannot start with: “ In the field, the above-mentioned scheme worked, and the neighbors were happy.” The above-mentioned scheme, what is it? Independent of the abstract, an introduction should Present the topic and get the reader interested, provide background or summarize existing research, position and detail your specific research problem, give an overview of the paper's structure. Other example: “Findings, regardless of how valuable they are, are stepping stones to pave the way on which the next generations walk.” A scientific article is not an opinion paper. There is no to little references.
“The composition of the baits was simple: mosquitoes feed on nectars made up of sugary solutions. Boric acid is a known insect toxin. Mosquito feed on warm-blooded animals and antibiotics are germ-killing agents used to prevent things from being spoiled and to keep them active as long as the losses of active ingredients are compensated.”: what does this mean??
The results are somehow described in introduction, then experimental methods (if they are) given and then in result section, there is not a single sentence but only numbers.
Example:
“5 Control sessions: From 07/30/2021 → 08/03/2021, 5 pictures with females and males separated (shown in Figure 8). The counts were:
- 133 mosquitoes:
- 68 males (51%)
- 65 females (49%).”
No statistical analyses.
The discussion is not structured at all with results and a succession of bullet points.
Figure quality is very bad, eg figures 1, 2 and 3. There is no figure legends.
Lines should be numbered for submission to a journal.
“ Without temperature control measures however, these methods are mainly useful for only
nectar-feeding insects, including male mosquitoes, because the warmth of the blood is a condition for the females to locate their meals”: To my knowledge, female mosquitoes also drink on nectar while it is not warm. Therefore they can locate a sugar meal while not warm.
“Although the caught mosquitoes were almost exclusively males, the numbers significantly increased.” What does this mean? Most of the paper is written this way and cannot be understood.
“Furthermore, (b) crystals began to form when the solution reacted with gelatin, a form of animal fat and complex amino acids (showed in Figure 3).” What is gelatin?
There are many more but I will not copy all the publication here.
Few minor modif but I will not list them all as too many
disease-carrying viruses> disease-causing? Viruses or bacteria do not carry diseases
the uses of > the use of
sugary mosquito baits> sugar baits to control mosquitoes, modify the sentence accordingly
natural spoiling process > Spoilage?
sugary solutions > sugar solutions
