Biogeography and ecology of Ostracoda in the U.S. northern Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas

Laura Gemery; Thomas M. Cronin; Lee W. Cooper; Harry J. Dowsett; Jacqueline M. Grebmeier

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0251164

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionFebruary 10, 2021
6 Apr 2021 Decision Letter - Fabrizio Frontalini, Editor PONE-D-21-04622 Biogeography and ecology of Ostracoda in the U.S. northern Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Gemery, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’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. I have now received the comments of two external reviewers; both of them are really positive on the novelty and wider perspective of the present Ms. They put forward only a few suggestions on the statistical part and possibly adding plate(s). Please submit your revised manuscript by May 16 2021 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 plosone@plos.org. 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The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately 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? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). 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 ONE 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: In my opinion, the paper is very interesting in approach and it furnishes relevant ostracod data from the Pacific-Arctic region, a key area of investigation also in the view of the climate change. I’ve found especially interesting (i) the multivariate analyse of a big dataset composed of ca. 300 samples, collected during the last decades from continental shelves characterized by different physical-chemical parameters and (ii) the potentiality to use the obtained results to infer more robust paleoenvironmental reconstructions and to track potential changes in ecosystems under changing climate conditions. Data interpretations and discussion are well justified and represent a logical product of a comprehensive and multi-faceted work. I list below few comments, that I hope might be helpful to the Authors. • I suggest to move the aims of the paper from lines 100-108 to the end of Introduction • Line 173: “≥5 phi = fine silts” maybe “fine silts and clay”? • Was the ostracod matrix treated before the application of mltivariate analyses? • Concerning DCA (Fig. 6a), I wonder how the Authors traced the limits of the areas/groups and why a group of samples remained outside these groups, at the left edge of the biplot. I think that these points should be explained in text. • I suggest to integrate the section “Time-series analysis” into the discussion section “Temporal trends in BCB Sea indicator species”. • Why any environmental gradient has been identified along the transect “Offhore Hanna Shoal” and “Alaskan Beaufort Sea”? I think that these points deserve a little bit of discussion. • Figure 1: I suggest to insert a map for an easier localization of the studied area. • I suggest to add the ostracod matrix used for multivariate analyses as supplementary material. Yours faithfully Reviewer #2: Dear Gemery and co-authors, your manuscript "Biogeography and ecology of Ostracoda in the U.S. northern Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas" is very well written and organised. I have annotated a pdf with some comments mainly about statistical analysis. I suggest to add a plate with the indicator taxa and to revise the reference list. ****** 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. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No [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: PONE-D-21-04622_reviewer biblio.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251164.r001
Revision 1
16 Apr 2021 Author Response 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: In my opinion, the paper is very interesting in approach and it furnishes relevant ostracod data from the Pacific-Arctic region, a key area of investigation also in the view of the climate change. I’ve found especially interesting (i) the multivariate analyse of a big dataset composed of ca. 300 samples, collected during the last decades from continental shelves characterized by different physical-chemical parameters and (ii) the potentiality to use the obtained results to infer more robust paleoenvironmental reconstructions and to track potential changes in ecosystems under changing climate conditions. Data interpretations and discussion are well justified and represent a logical product of a comprehensive and multi-faceted work. I list below few comments, that I hope might be helpful to the Authors. • I suggest to move the aims of the paper from lines 100-108 to the end of Introduction Author’s response: We think this is a good suggestion, and have made this change • Line 173: “≥5 phi = fine silts” maybe “fine silts and clay”? Author’s response: Yes, we have added “and clay” here • Was the ostracod matrix treated before the application of multivariate analyses? Author’s response: No, there was no special treatment; The species counts were converted into species percent of the total assemblage and then used directly. The Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort dataset is a subset from the Arctic Ostracode Database-2020 (Cronin et al., 2021). As explained in the Methods section, we used only samples that contained ≥30 specimens, as that was the cutoff we deemed large enough to contain a representative sample of ostracodes living at a particular location. • Concerning DCA (Fig. 6a), I wonder how the Authors traced the limits of the areas/groups and why a group of samples remained outside these groups, at the left edge of the biplot. I think that these points should be explained in text. Author’s response: The bounding areas were drawn based on how the data naturally separated out and not any specific factoring program. We’ve checked those samples on the far left that weren’t included in the ACW box, and thank the reviewer for bringing this to our attention. We have edited the figure bounding box and included those samples, which are affiliated with Alaska Coastal water. • I suggest to integrate the section “Time-series analysis” into the discussion section “Temporal trends in BCB Sea indicator species”. Author’s response: We consider the Time-series analysis to be part of the Results so the interpretation and implications are discussed in broader terms in the Discussion section, “Temporal trends.” • Why any environmental gradient has been identified along the transect “Offshore Hanna Shoal” and “Alaskan Beaufort Sea”? I think that these points deserve a little bit of discussion. Author’s response: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out and have added these points about the Hanna Shoal and Beaufort Sea to the respective sections: Both of these areas lack strong gradients. Hanna Shoal includes samples farther offshore around the shoal where sea ice usually persists longer, so that Shoal may have an influence based upon sea ice persistence. The transects across the Beaufort Sea represented a fairly uniform water mass because it represents 20-100m water depth, except closer to river inputs where H. sorbyana increased in abundance, as noted in the discussion. Also, these two areas were limited in sampling years since they have not been sampled consistently as part of the DBO sampling program. The Hanna Shoal samples were collected in 2012-2013 and the Beaufort Sea compared primarily in 2018 and 1971 with limited intermittent sampling in years in between. • Figure 1: I suggest to insert a map for an easier localization of the studied area. Author’s response: We have added an inset map to Fig. 1 for context of the study area. • I suggest to add the ostracod matrix used for multivariate analyses as supplementary material. Author’s response: Yes we have added this as an Excel file table to the supplementary material (Supplement Table 1). Reviewer #2: Dear Gemery and co-authors, your manuscript "Biogeography and ecology of Ostracoda in the U.S. northern Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas" is very well written and organised. I have annotated a pdf with some comments mainly about statistical analysis. Author’s response: As you will see in the tracked manuscript copy, we have made all the changes suggested by the Reviewer and also included comments in the pdf attachment. We have also added several references that were not included originally but cited in the text. I suggest to add a plate with the indicator taxa and to revise the reference list. Author’s response: We have added SEM images of the fauna to the Supplement Table 1 Figure. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers - Fin.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251164.r002
21 Apr 2021 Decision Letter - Fabrizio Frontalini, Editor Biogeography and ecology of Ostracoda in the U.S. northern Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas PONE-D-21-04622R1 Dear Dr. Gemery, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. 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 onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Fabrizio Frontalini Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251164.r003
Formally Accepted
26 Apr 2021 Acceptance Letter - Fabrizio Frontalini, Editor PONE-D-21-04622R1 Biogeography and Ecology of Ostracoda in the U.S. northern Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas Dear Dr. Gemery: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Fabrizio Frontalini Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251164.r004

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