Systematic Analysis of Breed, Methodological, and Geographical Impact on Equine Sperm Progressive Motility
, Imogen Thea Harris 1, Christy Maddock 1, Mark Farnworth 2, Alison Z. Pyatt 3 and Rebecca Nicole Sumner 4,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript analyses a measurable parameter of equine semen, progressive motility, in terms of method of assessment, breed differences, geographical location, season of the year , as well as temporary trends.
The information shown is very attractive, and so are the recommendation of implantation of a unique internationally accepted method for the evaluation of equine semen, similarly to the recommended WHO method for human semen evaluation. However, I have found several methodological mistakes that make this meta-analysis not suitable to be accepted in the current form.
Why don’t the authors include a paragraph in the introduction describing the differences in the method for PM determination in the horse. I find excessive the length of the introduction dedicated to human species.
The authors found significant differences between CASA and microscopy assessment, and so..
- Why didn´t they exclude the microscopy analysis from the study?
- Which is the number of studies reporting CASA data vs Microscopy?
- Which percentage of studies analyse PM with CASA per region/ per year?
The authors describe in L105 the term progressive motility by WHO 2010, but the parameters that define progressive motility when using a CASA system and not mentioned.
- Please, include this information along the differences found in the parameters used to classify an equine sperm as progressive, by the different CASA system reported in the included studies
L274
The authors state this study provides markers for future stallion fertility research, which ones?
L321-331
This paragraph in human semen differences in a French region due to the presence of pesticides in grapevine is not necessary, as the following one introduces the same idea.
I strongly suggest that, depending on the percentage of studies which included CASA, the authors remove studies measuring PM subjectively and focus only on the CASA PM parameter, which is the objective and accurate method to determine PM.
Author Response
Dear reviewer 1,
We would like to thank you for your time invested in reviewing our submission. Any comments raised have been addressed and our responses can be found in the attached document.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors present a systematic review of published literature on semen quality in stallions. They defined distinct inclusion and exclusion criteria for the papers evaluated. The methods used for the analyses are sufficiently described. The analysis of the impact of factors such as breed, year, month of collection, geographic location, semen preservation and the method of measuring/estimating sperm progressive motility provides new insights and builds the basis for designing further studies concerning semen quality analysis in stallions. From my point of view the manuscript can be published without changes.
Author Response
We would like to thank you for your time invested in reviewing our submission and we would like to thank you for your kind words in your review regarding our manuscript.
Whilst you reported that the manuscript could be published without changes, for which we thank you for, minor changes have been made based on suggestions from reviewer 1. We believe these add further clarification to any areas that may have required this to further strengthen the submission.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have considerably addressed this reviewers comments and I found they have corrected most of the flaws found in the previous version.
