PONE-D-22-26175Optimizing facility location, sizing, and growth time for a cultivated resource: A case study in coral aquaculturePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lippmann,

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Hello, 

   I have had your article reviewed by two experts in the field, and both have raised some concerns and made some comments that could potentially strengthen the article. I am therefore deeming this a major revision. Were you in agreement with their recommendations, I would welcome the submission of a revised version of the article in the coming weeks. 

Thanks, 

Anderson

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PLOS ONE

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R.B.L. is supported by the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program Logistics Scholarship. 

K.J.H. is supported by Australian Research Council Fellowship under Grant DE200101791."

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R.B.L. is supported by the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program Logistics Scholarship. 

K.J.H. is supported by Australian Research Council Fellowship under Grant DE200101791."

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Additional Editor Comments:

Hello,

I have had your article reviewed by two experts in the field, and both have raised some concerns and made some comments that could potentially strengthen the article. I am therefore deeming this a major revision. Were you in agreement with their recommendations, I would welcome the submission of a revised version of the article in the coming weeks.

Thanks,

Anderson

[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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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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

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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

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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: Lippmann and collaborators propose a mathematical programming model that can predict the optimal size and location of coral nurseries based on the survival rate of transplanted corals and subsequent costs. I found the model proposed interesting and well done. Methods were clearly outlined, result and discussion sections covered all necessary points, and publications related to the topic were cited. I believe that the model has significant value for conservation measures, even though age-based survival of transplanted coral is not fully characterized.

The manuscript was enjoyable to read and I only have a few minor edits to make.

Line 57: This sentence needs to be rephrased.

Line 123: Section 0? I don’t understand, is this a typographical error?

Line 397 and Figure 3: Cairns reef cluster needs to be colored differently, since gray is used in the previous figure to indicate reefs excluded from the restoration project.

Line 476: Why is the table included in the supplementary material? It can be incorporated into the main text.

Reviewer #2: PONE-D-22-26175 – Optimizing facility location, sizing, and growth time for a cultivated resource: A case

study in coral aquaculture

This paper approaches large-scale land-based coral aquaculture from an ‘optimal planning’ perspective as applied generally to cultivated – as opposed to manufactured – resources. The concept is interesting and worthy of exploration. I reviewed the manuscript from the angle of my training as a biologist and not an expert on supply chain logistics, computational mathematics, or engineering. In full disclosure, most of the Methods and Results described here are not familiar to me. Thus, other reviewers should be relied upon to comment on those technical and theoretical aspects of the paper. While I believe the approach is novel and clever and the manuscript is well-written, I have some concerns with the general concepts expressed in the paper. These are detailed below.

General comments:

- While I am a proponent of culturing corals for reef restoration, I (and I believe many others in this community) remain unconvinced and skeptical that large-scale land-based culture is ultimately a viable way to produce coral biomass for outplanting. The utility is apparent for controlled sexual reproduction or “genetic banking” of living corals. However, the scalability issues that plague restoration (e.g. this manuscript is considering outplanting at 50 out of 2816 reef in the GBR) are magnified in land-based systems. While I have no comparative data to support this assertion, I have experience working and conducting research in both land-based and ocean-based coral nurseries, and my intuition is that – unless a land-based nursery can be run almost entirely on renewable energy – the carbon footprint of producing coral biomass in a land-based system is prohibitive. Land-based coral culture is also extremely technically difficult, and corals tend to grow faster in ocean-based nurseries. Given this admitted bias, I do believe the authors have done valuable work here. To support publication, I would need to see acknowledgement in the manuscript that land-based facilities are not the only means of producing coral biomass for restoration, some “disclaimer” in terms of the amount of excess carbon dioxide emissions that may be created by industrial-scale coral production on land, and some discussion of these considerations.

- While I see the utility of the tool and the authors do certainly acknowledge that many assumptions are included in the calculations, in my opinion this could be highlighted to an even greater extent. The specific case study model could be updated as more data become available to fill in the values. Conclusions such as Cairns making the most sense for a facility due to location appear valid due to low sensitivity to costing/growth/survival variables. However for now, it is my opinion that the specific dollar values, required square meters, etc that are model outputs should be taken only as estimates in the broadest sense. Coral growth and survival both in aquaculture and after outplanting can be highly variable and system/location dependent. Overall, the authors do a good job of discussing things in relative terms and directional effects and magnitude of impacts from the different input variables, so only suggesting some additional acknowledgement of the level of uncertainty inherent in specific case study outputs.

Specific comments:

lines 40 - 44 – While on a broad scale this assumption (the longer/larger you grow something the better it will survive upon release) makes sense, in my opinion there should at least be some acknowledgement that this is a necessary oversimplification. An example from reforestation is cited but transitioning to corals complicates things a bit. Unlike trees, corals are often fragmented before being deployed to the reef, so even the basic assumption that the longer you grow something the larger it will be does not always hold up. Further, the below paper offers an example of a scenario in which corals grown longer on land to a larger size were outperformed (in terms of both post-outplant growth and survival) by the same species grown on land for a shorter period of time to a smaller size:

Henry, J.A., O’Neil, K.L., Pilnick, A.R. and Patterson, J.T., 2021. Strategies for integrating sexually propagated corals into Caribbean reef restoration: experimental results and considerations. Coral Reefs, 40(5), pp.1667-1677.

Line 57 – Suggest deleting “Cultivating”.

Lines 60-62 – Why just on land? Currently, most coral biomass for use in reef restoration is produced in ocean-based nurseries. Much more published data exists on coral growth rates in ocean-based than in land-based facilities.

Lines 88-91 – Could carbon emissions and other environmental impacts be included in this analysis? Greenhouses and enclosed structures used to grow corals require tremendous amounts of energy to pump, heat, and cool water and air as well as other ancillary processes. An analysis of the carbon footprint per unit of coral biomass produced in a land-based system would be very interesting and informative to the question of whether it makes sense to be producing coral biomass for outplanting in land-based systems.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Optimizing facility location, sizing, and growth time for a cultivated resource: A case study in coral aquaculture

PONE-D-22-26175R1

Dear Dr. Lippmann,

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.

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Kind regards,

Anderson B. Mayfield, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Hello,

Both reviewers found your responses to their concerns satisfactory. As such, I am pleased to now accept this article.

Anderson

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

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2. 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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. 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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. 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: (No Response)

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 #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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.

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

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