PCLM-D-24-00118

Contrasting responses of commercially important Northwest Atlantic bivalve species to ocean acidification and temperature conditions

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Thatcher,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Both reviewers see merit in your study and recommended a potential publication in PLOS Climate of a revised manuscript. While many requested reviews are relatively minor, there are important issues that should be addressed before I can accept your contribution.

More specifically, one reviewer pointed out a potential problem with Table 1 that would need to be addressed. There are also some important comments on the Discussion and in the Conclusions and Implications sections that should be addressed because you make important claims that should be backed up by the results (e.g. statistical significance of your conclusions). Please review in details the Reviewers' comments (especially in the annotated pdf) and take them into account in your revised manuscript. Overall, the revision should range between moderate to major.

As a final note, I'd like to also raise your attention on the choice of colors in the different figures (especially Figs 4-6 as pointed out by one of the reviewers). Please consider using a color scheme friendly for visually impaired readers.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 12 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Frédéric Cyr

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript “Contrasting responses of commercially important Northwest Atlantic bivalve species to ocean acidification and temperature conditions,” compares the response (growth, mortality, and shell coloration) of three Gulf of Maine bivalve species over a 20-week experiment changing temperature and pH. The authors found generally positive growth and survival, but changes in coloration, which may be an indicator of weakened systems. They also note the level of variability within and between species and some counter results to other studies. Overall, it is a clear, concise, and an interesting study. Comparing multiple species from the same experimental system is highly valuable, especially for a multistressor study. There were only a few points of needed clarification and areas where the authors could expand on the bigger picture of a few of their discussion/conclusions. Overall, minor revisions are needed before publication, in my opinion.

Details:

Line 64 & 74: RCP/SSP 8.5 is no longer considered business as usual, but likely the more extreme case (4-5C increase). Based on updated trajectories and more realistic future economic/development, we are on track for 2-3C instead; still hot, but not as dire. Please revise and see:

• Burgess, M G, S L Becker, R E Langendorf, A Fredston, and C M Brooks. “Climate Change Scenarios in Fisheries and Aquatic Conservation Research.” ICES Journal of Marine Science, April 4, 2023, fsad045. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsad045.

Line 65: Is Ω without subscript supposed to represent aragonite and calcite? If so, just make that clear.

Field collection 2.2: Please provide a map of the area and identify where each collection occurred for each species.

2.3 Experimental conditions and design: why these pH and temperature levels? What are they based on?

Line 208: What is n > 196000 referring? Please clarify in the text.

Table 2. Duplication of table. Please reformat.

Line 275: Why were they excluded?

Line 282-287: What does coloration tell us? Please provide addition context here on why coloration is an important measure.

Line 434-436: Why might it differ? Explain.

Growth: given food was held constant in the experiment, what do these species experience in the wild between rising temperatures and food availability? Is there an inverse relationship? Provide additional context to this dimension that was not explored in the study but has been in models and observations. Example:

• Bris, Arnault Le, Katherine E. Mills, Richard A. Wahle, Yong Chen, Michael A. Alexander, Andrew J. Allyn, Justin G. Schuetz, James D. Scott, and Andrew J. Pershing. “Climate Vulnerability and Resilience in the Most Valuable North American Fishery.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, January 17, 2018, 201711122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1711122115.

• Guyondet, T., L. A. Comeau, C. Bacher, J. Grant, R. Rosland, R. Sonier, and R. Filgueira. “Climate Change Influences Carrying Capacity in a Coastal Embayment Dedicated to Shellfish Aquaculture.” Estuaries and Coasts 38, no. 5 (September 1, 2015): 1593–1618. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-014-9899-x.

Line 445: Why might it be different?

Discussion/conclusion: can the authors speak to what this means for fisheries and aquaculture in the region?

Reviewer #2: Overall an interesting paper, well-written that will contribute to the field. However, there are a number of things that need to be clarified or corrected before this paper can be considered ready for publication. Specific comments and suggestions for the manuscript are included in the attached files, but can be summarized as follows:

1. Table 1 - there appears to be discrepancies / irregularities in calcium carbonate saturation states that need to be addressed

2. Mortality - there needs to be some statistical analysis of tank effects within treatments to see if mortalities can be attributed to treatments or if they are due to a particular tank effect

3. Food compensation - more information needs to be added in terms of what the ration of diet was and then to include in the discussion a section on how abundant food may buffer some of the effects of environmental stress (and references cited to support this which are available in the literature)

4. The abstract, discussion and conclusions need to be reframed to specifically state that this paper is about juveniles not larvae - studies on larvae have consistently shown that bivalve larvae are sensitive to OA, and that juveniles may be less sensitive (and there are some papers on juvenile responses for some of your species) so to compare your juvenile results to that of larvae and say that they are contrasting results is not factually correct; very important to be clear about life stage vulnerabilities

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PCLM-D-24-00118_review.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: PCLM-D-24-00118_review_summary of comments.pdf

Contrasting responses of commercially important Northwest Atlantic bivalve species to ocean acidification and temperature conditions

PCLM-D-24-00118R1

Dear Dr. Thatcher,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Contrasting responses of commercially important Northwest Atlantic bivalve species to ocean acidification and temperature conditions' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team. 

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact climate@plos.org.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Frédéric Cyr

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: Great work, hope to see it in 'print' soon!

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

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