Peer Review History
Original SubmissionAugust 27, 2021 |
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PONE-D-21-27786Depth and benthic habitat influence shallow and mesophotic predatory fishes on a remote, high-latitude coral reefPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Monk, 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. Both reviewers believe that this manuscript is a valuable addition to the literature, and helps fill a gap in our knowledge about fish in mesophotic environments. However, they also both comment that the methods require some improvement, with a focus on clarifying the classification of fishes (e.g., between top-predator and mesopredator, and standardisation of names - particularly reviewer 2), more information on how depth zones were sampled including the gap in sampling shallow zones and how this may influence conclusions, potentially using zone rather than depth in the analysis in order to strengthen the argument concerning community changes across a depth gradient, and a little more polish generally within the methods section to bring it up to the standards of the rest of the manuscript. While all comments should be addressed in the response to reviewers, please pay particular attention to reviewer one's critique of the interpretation of the community patterns shown in Figure 2. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 10 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. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
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If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? 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: This is one of the few studies that documented patterns in the abundance and biomass of predatory fish assemblages in remote atoll seamount MPAs. The study used baited cameras to efficiently sample large areas of the lagoon and reef slope of the atoll, extending to the mid-mesophotic zone. The data presented are a valuable contribution to the coral reef ecological literature as previous studies of reef fish assemblages on remote atolls are mostly limited to euphotic depths. The ms is relatively well written but there is room for some improvement. I hope the general comments below will help improve the paper. Also listed below are minor comments, suggestions and corrections. General comments 1. The work highlighted the important roles of predatory fishes in the trophic ecology of reefs, the concerns about their dwindling numbers due to overfishing, and the importance of establishing baseline reference points for their spatial distribution (L39-49). However, it was difficult to appreciate the data presented in light of these points without showing some data on the overall fish assemblage. What proportion of the species richness, abundance and biomass of the overall fish assemblage in the atoll can be accounted for by predatory fishes? How do these proportions change with location and depth within the atoll? Do these proportions differ with other remote atolls in other regions that are open or closed to fishing? Addressing these questions may enhance the value of the ms. This seems fairly easy to do because the patterns presented here were simply extracted from the pooled fish assemblage data (L151-152). 2. Distinguishing patterns in the top predators from those of mesopredators seems useful and important to this ms. In many sections (e.g. L39, L58, L353-358, L399-405), the text seems to suggest a desire to highlight patterns in the abundance and biomass of top predators like sharks, large carangids and large groupers. There was also a desire to highlight the mesopredators (L376, L406). However, the ms did not explicitly identify which ones are top predators or mesopredators, for instance in Tables 1, 3, 5, and S1. 3. The study highlighted significant differences in the structure of predatory fish assemblages between the upper- and mid-mesophotic zones and the lagoon (L333-334). However, the results did not really support this because partitioning into upper (30-60 m) and mid (60-90) mesophotic zones (L54) was not explicitly considered in the sampling design and data analysis (i.e. depth was treated as a continuous variable). 4. The depth range between about 11 to 29 m was not sampled in the south part of the atoll (Table 1). Was this a consequence of spatially balanced sampling that was weighted towards more complex habitat (L118)? Or was this simply a consequence of difficulties sampling that depth range in the south part of the atoll due to wave exposure? In any case, this gap in sampling should be clarified in the methods. More importantly, its potential implications for the conclusions must be discussed. Minor comments, suggestions and corrections L18-20 – Sentence about Middleton Reef seems out of place here. It can be moved further down, around L24 where the authors described where the study was conducted. L28 – 90% of the total fish biomass or just the total biomass of large predators? Needs clarification. L47 – Knowledge may be a better word to use here than understandings. L81 – key predatory species? L85 – Sentence needs improvement. Suggestion: “Bait was used to attract fish following methods that were approved by the Animal Ethics Committee…” L104 – Specify that you are referring to habitats and faunal communities of Middleton Reef L125 – austral (as opposed to boreal), not Astral L126 – Odd to read numbers here instead of the authors L131 – Must be camera lens, not field (and field of view is another matter) L133 – higher order predators and mesopredators L135 – were instead of was L147 – Needs correction and further explanation. Parameters a and b of length-weight models for each species are what can be sourced from Fishbase, not biomass calculations. Were length-weight models (in FL) available for all species? If not (or only available for TL), what was the procedure? L148 – spell out QA/QC (quality control and assurance?) L151 – by dividing abundance AND biomass? L154 – Suggest providing an idea of the number of times double-counting was suspected for these mobile predators, and the procedure taken to omit suspected repeats counts L161 – of THE predatory fish assemblage… L164-165 – Clarify that you are referring to abundance of the selected predatory fishes only. L168 – Suggest modifying to “abundance and biomass structures of the predator assemblage across area (north, south and lagoon) as a fixed factor” L200 – Check value for average abundance across all deployments stated in text against Table 1 L202-203 – Figure 2 does not convincingly show that sampling in the north and south areas adequately captured predator diversity. I tend to disagree that predatory species accumulation curves “largely reached asymptotes” in these regions. Instead, what Fig. 2 suggests is that the north and south areas have a higher species richness of predatory fish and that these areas were not as well-sampled as the lagoon. I think the original statement should be toned down and the higher species richness outside of the lagoon of Middleton Reef should be highlighted. L223-226 – This sentence was a little confusing because it shifts its reference from total biomass to average biomass per deployment. Also, it should refer to Table 1 not S1. L242, 246 – fish not fishes L251-255 – Check sentence construction. This is a very long sentence that is hard to read. L302 – GAMs not GAM’s L304 – bohar not Bohar L306-310 – Again, a very long sentence that is difficult to understand. Suggest reconstructing or splitting. L330 – five species THAT contributed to… L353 – remove semicolon L354 – Odd to read a number here instead of the authors L374 – Remove open parenthesis L402-403 – E. daemelii is listed as near threatened (NT) which is NOT threatened, at least not yet. L404-405 – I didn’t fully understand the latter part of this sentence. It seems to say that C. galapagensis are likely to be vulnerable even if adult distributions of the species are unknown. But the species is listed as least concern (LC) – Table S1 Fig. 3 caption – Were the outliers removed from this plot all records in that one BRUV deployment that was removed from the analysis as stated in L164-165? Reviewer #2: Well done and interesting manuscript. The figures and tables are tidy and well-presented. The information in the manuscript is pretty complete and easy to understand. I have made suggestions in the attached document that I hope improve the readability and clarity. In particular the Methods need some added information as it does not seem as polished as the other sections. ********** 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: Yes: Dr Tiffany Sih [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. 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Revision 1 |
Depth and benthic habitat influence shallow and mesophotic predatory fishes on a remote, high-latitude coral reef PONE-D-21-27786R1 Dear Dr. Monk, 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, Fraser Andrew Januchowski-Hartley, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: |
Formally Accepted |
PONE-D-21-27786R1 Depth and benthic habitat influence shallow and mesophotic predatory fishes on a remote, high-latitude coral reef Dear Dr. Monk: 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. Fraser Andrew Januchowski-Hartley Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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