PCLM-D-24-00273

Bioenergetic modeling reveals opposing effects of ocean and terrestrial warming of an intertidal crustacean

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Roberts,

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.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 27 2025 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.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• 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,

Katharina C Wollenberg Valero, Dr. rer. nat

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please note that PLOS Climate has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, we expect all author-generated code to be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse.

2. We noticed that you used "unpublished data" in the manuscript. We do not allow these references, as the PLOS data access policy requires that all data be either published with the manuscript or made available in a publicly accessible database. Please amend the supplementary material to include the referenced data or remove the references.

3. Please provide an Author Summary. This should appear in your manuscript between the Abstract (if applicable) and the Introduction, and should be 150–200 words long. The aim should be to make your findings accessible to a wide audience that includes both scientists and non-scientists. Sample summaries can be found on our website under Submission Guidelines:

https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/s/submission-guidelines#loc-parts-of-a-submission.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Dear authors,

I have now received two reviews for your manuscript which are both generally positive, but also both agree that you should clarify some aspects of the model, its generalizability, and how it differs from existing methods. Please respond to the reviewer comments point-by point as you prepare your revision.

Thank you

K. Valero

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

**********

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: Overall thoughts: This is a very interesting paper and has wider implications should this model be applied to multiple organisms in intertidal zone. The mathematical modelling is a bit confusing to go through and it is a suggestion to clarify a few things as stated below. Please make the figures uniform and clean up the text in the figures. There was enough literature but the discussion can use a few explanatory sentences and linking to literature to make stronger arguments for the model and how it can be added to current research practices. The model is clearly explained and used in the context of thermal studies, with interesting linkage of physiological and environmental factors experienced by intertidal organisms. There are multiple editorial issues such as double spacing, especially in the supplementary.

Page 1, Line 5: Add genus and species to title for better visibility (Balanus glandula)

Page 2, Line 27 - 29: Rephrase to a hypothesis driven statement such as: we hypothesised that, based on these thermal responses, aerial and aquatic warming will decrease B. glandula growth in a field environment because of increased costs and reduced feeding.

Page 3, Line 58 - 59: Elaborate here where it says “Importantly, each of these processes within an organism may have its own thermal dependence [11,15,20,21].” Perhaps mention some of the processes and how they are thermally dependent without going into too much detail.

Page 4, Line 76-77: Add in the parameters mentioned here into figure 1 for example add in temperature ranges or state "splash zone", "desiccation zone", "High temp zone" etc.

Page 6, Line 128: Authors say that they assumed U was zero due to Wu and Levings found very little energy lost to excretion. Can this be rephrased to say “very little energy lost to nitrogen waste excretion” for clarity?

Page 7, Line 134: Please can you add clarifying wording within this section, for example, in the pervious section you stated that A is the energy assimilated from the food which is consumption minus feces, however in the next section (The numerical scope for growth model) you imply that Aday is consumption, substituting words makes the formula difficult to follow.

Page 7, line 149: Please clarify where 2.055921 comes from and what it represents, as I assume that 0.7912 is the AFDW size-scaling coefficient, however, this was not stated in the text either and needed to be found in the table.

Page 9, line 160 (eq. 6): Remove the comma at the end of the equation.

Page 9, line 175: Please explain how chlorophyll fits in here, I assume it’s a food source

Page 11, section lines 203 - 208: Add in the air and water temperature ranges and peak temperatures during low tide temperatures in the summer from historical data or weather service stations.

Page 14, line 277: Add full stop after [75].

Page 15, line 296: Are these low tide temperatures aerial temperatures?

Page 15, line 300-301: Add in the seasons for an overall picture of the environment.

Page 18, Figure 7: Please edit the quality of the text in figure 7 and edit for publication purposes

Page 21, lines 423-425: Please add research in which the relationship between temperature and feeding was done in lab-studies.

Page 21, lines 432-433: Are there any studies that found similar findings?

Page 22, line 452-453: “However, the relationship between survival and energetics is complex [80].” Can you please elaborate a bit more here regarding this statement in the context of your study?

Page 22, line 463-464: Consider employing a thermal device that mimics the body heat in barnacles, such as the robomussel but for barnacles.

Page 28, line 583: Change “... criteria; First…” to “criteria; first…”, make the f not a capital.

Supplementary:

Line 23: Please state for clarity where Claremont is.

Line 26: Why was aquatic respiration not done at 30℃ if the feeding rate was done at this temp?

Lines 29 - 31: Please clarify how they were rested. Did they have periods out of water as well as in, during these rest periods?

Line 36: What water was used? Fresh marine made water or water collected in situ?

Line 48: Please clarify what 10°Ch-1 is.

Line 50: Remove the double spacing between sentences.

Line 51: Remove the double spacing between sentences.

Line 53: Remove the double spacing between sentences.

Line 55: Remove the double spacing between sentences.

Line 71: Remove the double spacing between sentences.

Line 78: Remove the double spacing between sentences.

Line 93: Remove the double spacing between bracketed portion and last word.

Line 97: Change “upslope” to “up-slope”

Line 99: Add full stop after reference.

Table S2.1.: Please standardize the font throughout the document and this table.

Line 192: Is it umol or µmol? If so, please change throughout.

Line 195: Add end of brackets following curve fits.

Line 196: Chage “up to 25 degrees C low” to “up to 25℃ low”.

Line 198: Remove final page.

Reviewer #2: Review PCLM-2024-273

This manuscript (Bioenergetic modelling reveals opposing effects of ocean and terrestrial warming of an intertidal crustacean) represents an effort to model the dynamics in the energy budget of intertidal barnacles occupying different shore levels. The authors present a scope-for-growth model that allows quantifying energy intake and costs (the latter revealed through respirometry measurements conducted previously) as a function of aerial exposure, temperature, and food availability. The model further accounts for the contribution of feeding compensation shown by intertidal organisms after periods of starvation due to aerial exposure, an aspect that has not been previously considered in similar energy budget formulations. The study also includes a sensitivity analysis to examine the relative influence of changes in the model parameters. Finally, the authors used the model to investigate the effect of seawater and air temperature increases due to climate change. This is, in my view, a good contribution that advances our understanding of thermal ecology and organismal energetics, while offering a model that can provide predictions of individual responses to climate change. The observation that the effects of water and air temperature warming are contrasting for the species is particularly interesting, as it differs from what can be expected for other taxa that exhibit metabolic depression during aerial exposure. Upon reading the study, however, I did come across several issues that I believe should be amended, some of them of course more important than others. Notable, it is my impression that the authors criticize other modelling frameworks without necessarily understanding them. For instance, in lines 105-108 you state that other more complex frameworks don’t estimate parameters empirically. This is not true, and deserves clarification. I also request some clarification regarding the model equations.

Please consider these and other specific comments and suggestions as follows:

Abstract. The Abstract is clear and well written. I would just request that the authors to indicate the bioenergetics model favoured in the study.

Also, when mentioning the elevation-dependent compensation factor, z, can you clarify what biological process its influencing? This might need to be clarified, otherwise the correction seems a bit obscure to me.

L84. From the Figure, I can't tell which is panel a or b.

L88. Figure 1 caption. Please provide more details on how the data from Fig. 1b were produced. The reader should know the height of the three levels and the method and data used to determine the percent of emersion time.

L98. As commented above, I can't tell which is panel C. Also, note that you previously used small letters to define each panel.

L103-105. I agree with the authors about the importance of capturing differences in thermal sensitivity across responses. However, this sentence dismisses a key element, scale. DEB theory and associated models seeks to identify general principles that can be used to model responses across taxa, usually for longer time periods. This might be implied in your sentence, but for fairness, I would ask the authors to be more explicit.

L105-108. I don't agree that SFG models set themselves apart from other more complex frameworks because they estimate their parameters empirically. This is not a constraint imposed by other frameworks, like DEB. The modeller is completely free to implement empirically-derived parameters, if they consider appropriate. I would ask the authors to modify the wording to avoid misleading the readers.

L122. Following this definition, I think that the units of the components of the SFG model are joules. But its best to specify that clearly so that the reader understands the difference between this 'static' SFG and the 'dynamic' numerical SFG presented hereafter.

L135. For clarity, please provide the units of the energy fluxes.

L146. It is my impression that eq. 4 should be reversed, so that SFGday is the dependent variable (calculated). If I understand correctly, the 6-month experiment provided empirical data to determine dMday, and this was then used to estimate SFGday.

L149. As per previous comment, eq. 5 might need to be reversed. The objective is to estimate Mday from Lday data measured in the 6-month experiment. Then you can use dMday in eq. 4.

L162. You might need to double check the symbols as you use either AER or EXP to refer to the same thing.

L171-176. The model used to describe assimilation seems appropriate for characterising a functional response. However, I am concerned that the data used to fit the model are based on an experiment using Artemia, while the main text uses chlorophyll-a as a proxy for food availability. Feeding is certainly different depending on food item, and I am not sure that the authors have accounted for this. Please clarify.

L183. Even if the estimation for the recovery cost is explained in other papers, it is important to provide some details here. The readers and myself would appreciate a mathematical formula. Furthermore, it would be interesting for us to see the contribution of bE_EXP and bR_REC to Rd in the Results.

L218-219. Can you indicate the number of barnacles that were followed?

L244. For the model fitting, you used field growth experiment data to independently estimate three 'feeding' parameters (pmax, z, FH). This is an indirect approach that assumes that only those parameters are responsible for explaining variability in growth. I think that this potential caveat should be mentioned somewhere.

L248. Besides referring to the data by Nishizaki and Carrington, it would be interesting to include the range of chl-a values covered by the model.

L249. Di you used the mean across the 2 weeks? Please specify.

L257. Possibly an error with 'determined estimated'.

L265. In this subsection, please provide citations for R and the optim package.

L269. Please write the name of the algorithm in full.

L277. Dot missing in this sentence.

L328. The large discrepancy is particularly for interval 1. Worth reporting, I think.

L332. Note an inconsistency in the labelling of each panel in Figure S2.2 and the caption.

This Figure S2.2 also confused me because it shows that aquatic respiration (purple) increases when animals are exposed during low tide. I'm also unable to see the line for aerial exposure cost (blue) during the low tide period.

L335-336. You indicate that assimilation is a rate, but the units are J mg-1. It seems strange to include a rate with no time units. Please clarify.

L338. As I mentioned above, you have not provided an idea of the actual chlorophyll-a data.

L354. I think you mean F-I, no?

L387-389. You speak about percent reduction/increase in growth; however, Fig. 9 shows absolute SFG values. I suggest that you describe in the text the same thing you illustrate in the figure.

L443. Degree symbol is missing.

L459-461. If I understand this correctly (and based on the references you cite), here you imply that the barnacle thermal sensitivity is higher in warmer water than in warmer air, no? This is however not what you report: metabolic rates are higher in air than water. Please clarify.

L461-463. Sure, the thermal inertia of the body might buffer the warming, with air temperatures increasing quicker. However, we are talking about very small animals, and I am not sure that thermal inertia plays an important role here.

L497-500. As I indicated earlier, this assumption can be modified in DEB models by the user. See for example this paper, where thermal responses were modelled differently in water and air:

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34786-w

**********

6. 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 #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes:  Cristián J Monaco

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response_to_Reviewers_auresp_2.docx

PCLM-D-24-00273R1

Bioenergetic modeling reveals opposing effects of ocean and terrestrial warming of an intertidal crustacean, Balanus glandula

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Roberts,

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.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 18 2025 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.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• 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,

Miquel Vall-llosera Camps

Staff Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

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 #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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 #1: Most of the comments were completed to satisfaction, please may you look at the following editorial issues and a comment that was not addressed:

Page 4, line 79: Please put a space between “metabolism” and “[15]”

Page 8, line 158: Change the second “Scope for Growth” to “SFG”

Page 11-12, line 216: Reformat so “eq.8” is below the equation

Page 12, line 224: Remove “the” before “this assimilation”

Page 15, line 303: Put a space between “(v1.3)” and “[76]”

Page 24, line 506: Put a space between “tides” and “[90]”

Page 24, line 507: Move the full stop from before “[38]” to after.

As per previous comment: “Page 22, line 452-453: “However, the relationship between survival and energetics is complex [80].” Can you please elaborate a bit more here regarding this statement in the context of your study?” Changed to page 23, lines 471-473, please elaborate further here with which species to add in the comparative statement instead of a general “intertidal species from the region”.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for addressing all my comments and suggestions. In my opinion, the manuscript now meets all the criteria for publication in PLOS Climate.

**********

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 #1: Yes:  Kaylee Beine

Reviewer #2: Yes:  Cristián J Monaco

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Bioenergetic modeling reveals opposing effects of ocean and terrestrial warming of an intertidal crustacean, Balanus glandula

PCLM-D-24-00273R2

Dear Dr. Roberts,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Bioenergetic modeling reveals opposing effects of ocean and terrestrial warming of an intertidal crustacean, Balanus glandula' 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,

Jamie Males

Staff Editor

PLOS Climate

***********************************************************

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

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 #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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 #1: Authors have addressed all corrections and editorials

Reviewer #2: The manuscript is in good shape for publication.

**********

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 #1: Yes:  Kaylee Beine

Reviewer #2: Yes:  Cristián J. Monaco

**********